American Marketing Association: Also in This Issue

3.31.
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AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION
MARKETINGPOWER.COM
Water conservation has been billed as the most important environmental issue of the 21st century, yet few American consumers are altering their behaviorsand fewer companies are trying to motivate them to do so
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Project management tips and tricks
3.31.12
VOL. 46 | NO. 4
table of contents
Michael Kullman Chairperson of the AMA Board 2011-2012 Dennis Dunlap, AMA Chief Executive Officer ddunlap@ama.org
EDITORIAL STAFF
Phone (800) AMA-1150 Fax (312) 542-9001 E-mail editor@ama.org Elisabeth A. Sullivan, Editor esullivan@ama.org Christine Birkner, Staff Writer cbirkner@ama.org Hennessy Design Group, Inc., Art Directors
ADVERTISING STAFF
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Fax (312) 992-3763 E-mail ads@ama.org Richard Ballschmiede, Advertising Sales Director rballschmiede@ama.org (312) 542-9076 Catherine Eck, Advertising Account Representative ceck@ama.org (312) 542-9103 Lore Gil-Torres, Classied Ad Sales ltorres@ama.org (312) 542-9033 Sandra Wright, Directory Sales swright@ama.org (312) 542-9063 Sally Schmitz, Production Manager sschmitz@ama.org (312) 542-9038 Brian Thompson, Advertising Production Coordinator bthompson@ama.org (312) 542-9094
Marketing News (ISSN 0025-3790) is published monthly with four special issues in March, May, September and November (16 times a year) by the Publishing Group of the American Marketing Association, 311 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 5800, Chicago, Ill. 60606-2266, USA. (800) AMA-1150, (312) 542-9000.
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FEATURES
COVER STORY
DEPARTMENTS
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the buzz core concepts

Heres how to make the most of your e-mail marketing strategy without ooding your customers inboxes.
10 aaker on branding
Marketing News welcomes expressions of all professional viewpoints on marketing and its related areas. These may be as letters to the editor, Viewpoint columns, or articles. Letters should be brief and may be condensed by the editors. Please request a copy of the Writers Guidelines before submitting an article. Upon submission to the AMA, photographs and manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, adequately stamped envelope.
Annual subscription rates: Marketing News is a benet of membership for professional members of the American Marketing Association. Annual professional membership dues in the AMA are $195. Annual subscription rates: $35 members, $170 nonNorth American members, $102 nonmembers and $133 libraries, corporations and institutions. Single copies $10 individual, $10 institutions; foreign add $5 per copy for air, printed matter. Payment must be in U.S. funds or the equivalent. Canadian residents add 13% GST (GST Registration #127478527). Advertisers and advertising agencies assume liability for all content (including text, representations and illustrations) of advertisements published, and also assume responsibility for any claims arising therefrom made against the publisher. The right is reserved to reject any advertisement. Copyright 2012 by the American Marketing Association. All rights reserved. Without written permission from the AMA, any copying or reprinting (except by authors reprinting their own works) is prohibited. Requests for permission to reprintsuch as copying for general distribution, advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works or resaleshould be submitted in writing by mail or sent via e-mail to permissions@ama.org. Reprints in quantity are available by contacting Georgia Prince, Sheridan Reprints, (914) 793-0460. Printed in the U.S.A.
12 Cause for Concern
Water conservation has been billed as the most important environmental issue of the 21st century, yet few American consumers are altering their behaviorsand fewer companies are trying to motivate them to do so. Content marketing is worth the effort. For a minimal nancial investment, you can reap big rewards. B-to-B communications expert Beth Monaghan explains.
Success doesnt always breed successat least not when it comes to transformational innovation, writes Prophets David Aaker. Ninety-six of the top 100 advertisers are using Facebook, but marketers often lack clear focus on what they want to accomplish there. Forresters Josh Bernoff offers some tips and best practices.
problem solved
11
social media
Allstate employs a Facebook-based blackout campaign to shed light on teen driving deaths. Robert Kanes, a producer at Hot Studio Inc., shares tips and insights that he has gleaned from helping to run his rms carefully orchestrated project management process. Blake Fohl, head of marketing at True Value, talks about taking the storied brands marketing into the digital age. Check out the AMAs latest lineup of conferences and events, and learn how you can join the action.
16 Release Your Inner Scribe
22 10 minutes with
30 how I do it
31 AMA community meetup
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thebuzz
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Ahead of the Curve

ater, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. Coleridge was, of course, referring to the deep, blue sea, but that quote (or the idiomatic version of it) could be applied to the worlds resource status. Sea levels might be rising, but environmental experts say that potable water supplies are falling and concerns over water scarcity in many regions could make water conservation the most important environmental issue of the 21st century. Not to trivialize (or commercialize) a serious issue, but companies that adopt water conservation in their cause marketing strategies have an opportunity to differentiate themselves and lead the way on an environmental issue that has yet to be recognized by much of corporate Americaat least outside of their operations and that consumers are becoming increasingly aware of and concerned by. Maybe our cover story on page 12 will inspire you to dive deeper into this topic to see if this cause could be right for your organization. In this issue, we also cover two topics that are becoming increasingly commonand increasingly importantin the marketing industry. On page 16, we discuss content marketing with communications expert Beth Monaghan, co-founder of a Massachusetts-based agency that helps B-to-B brands craft compelling digital content, from blog posts to LinkedInbased pointers. And on page 22, youll hear from Robert Kanes, a producer at Hot Studio, who shares his extensive experience with project management systems and explains how his firm gets the most out of its marketing automation software. If these topics are of interest to you and you want to see more coverage in these pagesor if you have other topics to suggestplease feel free to reach out to us. Wed love to connect with you. Best,
Elisabeth A. Sullivan esullivan@ama.org
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FROM INFORMATION TO IMPACT: UNLOCKING THE VALUE OF DONOR DATA As a nonprot leader, you know that in order to gain a competitive advantage in todays market, you must gain a better understanding of your donors, both as a group and as individuals. The good news is that the information is all there for the taking. Join Bev Hutney, director of innovation and research at the Stelter Co., and Kristin Runyan, CIO and VP of product management at CDS Global, as they share their insights into how to gather and analyze donor data to help guide your important decisions. Visit MarketingPower.com/webcasts.
MARKETING NEWS | MARCH 31, 2012
thebuzz
BUZZ BIT
Politically Incorrect
aying negative political advertising is beginning to sound redundant. The 2012 election cycle is picking up steam and, once again, the mudslinging is in full effect. Such contentious advertising from political candidates is distastefuland its even more unappetizing when its created by mainstream brands, experts say. Negative messaging doesnt work for any brand, political or otherwise, says Harris Diamond, CEO of New York-based PR firm Weber Shandwick, who has worked on U.S. gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns. He cites drops in voter turnout such as for this years Republican primary in Florida, which attracted 10% fewer voters than in 2008, as evidence of the detrimental effect that negative political adverting has on the political category as a whole. Candidates only care about themselves, not the product, not the category, so what candidates managed to do is destroy peoples opinions about politicians. The way [negative advertising] works for politicians would be dangerous for brands. If two brands are fighting it out and destroying the category, thats not a good place to be, Diamond says. Since you can, of course, learn from others mistakes, theres a lesson to be learned from politicians marketing missteps, experts say: Rather than intentionally calling out a competitor in a negative way, brands (and candidates) should engage in comparative advertising. In marketing, one competitor doesnt characterize the other as evil, bad or dangerous. They try to make themselves look better most of the time by stressing their positives. The inference makes the other product look worse, but its only by inference. Its very rarely said as a specific line, Diamond says. m
This is an excerpt from In Politics and Marketing, Does Negativity Work? which ran in the Feb. 16 issue of Marketing News Exclusives. To subscribe to this and other AMA newsletters, visit MarketingPower.com/newsletters.
BUZZ BIT
Team Up Technologically
Source: The State of Collaboration Software Implementation: 2011, Forrester Research Inc.
MARCH 31, 2012 | MARKETING NEWS
coreconcepts
E-MAIL MARKETING
BY CHRISTINE BIRKNER | STAFF WRITER
cbirkner@ama.org
Inbox Equilibrium
Product announcements, special offers, thought leadership contentthere are a lot of worthwhile components to your e-mail marketing strategy. Heres how to make the most of the digital channel without ooding your customers inboxes.
he e-mail inbox can be sacred territoryand research suggests that its being invaded. The number of e-mails sent by marketers last year jumped 16% from the year prior, according to Responsys Inc., a San Bruno, Calif.-based e-mail marketing software rm, and that cluttered landscape means that customers are spending less time with each message. Viewers look at e-mail in three to ve seconds: Grab me or Im gone, says Mary Kathleen Sullivan, senior strategic consultant at Responsys. Most businesses go wrong by applying traditional marketing rules to e-mail, says Ron Cates, director of new market development at Waltham, Mass.-based e-mail marketing firm Constant Contact Inc. If I can secure your physical address, I can mail stuff to you and you wont get mad, but the e-mail inbox is much more personal and if you send me promotional content I didnt ask for or send it too often, or I dont like your content, youre a spammer and Im not going to do business with you, he says. Heres how to properly leverage the e-mail channel for your marketing needs and avoid contributing to the clutter and becoming what Cates calls an accidental spammer.
1. Determine the appropriate frequency.
Most e-mails always have the message, Buy my stuff. We know you sell stuff, but we really want to connect with a human voice in the e-mail.
RON CATES, CONSTANT CONTACT INC.
When someone signs up for your e-mail list, your welcome e-mail should ask them to visit your preference center so they can tell you whats relevant to them and how frequently theyd like to get communication from you, says Nello Franco, senior vice president of customer success at Lyris Inc., an Emeryville, Calif.-based online and e-mail marketing agency. Your e-mail frequency and the customers threshold for promotional content relates directly to the strength of your relationship with the customer, Cates says, so you need multiple lists depending on relationship levels. If I was in a tennis store every two weeks and they knew me by name, they could send me a promotional e-mail every week and I would think it was really cool. If I went in one time three months ago just to buy some tennis balls and [got] e-mails every week, [Im] going to think theyre spammers and its going to backfire on them. Monitoring active and inactive e-mail recipients also is useful, Sullivan says. The more engaged you areand by engaged, I mean opening, clicking on the site and buyingthe more tolerant you are of increased messages.
2. Aim before you re.
Even new product launch e-mails should be targeted, rather than sent out to your whole list. And to target effectively, customers browsing histories often offer better behavioral clues than their purchase histories or e-mail preferences, Franco says. For example, Matches, a London-based luxury fashion retailer and Lyris client, received double the e-mail engagement rates, double the e-mail opens, more than triple the unique clicks and fewer unsubscribes when it targeted e-mails to a list of customers who had viewed Matches products online versus a group who had purchased the brand in the past or expressed preferences in the e-mail preference center, according to Franco. Its what they tell you versus what they do, he says. They dont continuously tell you what they want. They will continuously do what theyre interested in. B-to-B marketers should monitor prospects at all points in the buying cycle to know how best to target them, Franco says. Looking at their browsing history will help
you understand the kind of things theyre looking for. There might be triggers in the process that let you know to engage in a certain way with them. Its not just about what they tell you they want and what theyve purchased.
3. Remember that content is king.

E-mails that are educational rather than promotional often are more effective, Cates says, so be sure to develop a solid content marketing strategy. For instance, the aforementioned tennis supply store could send an e-mail with tips on improving your forehand and that e-mails click to continue link would lead to a page on the stores website with a sidebar of new product offerings, Cates says. Most e-mails always have the message, Buy my stuff. We know you sell stuff, but we really want to connect with a human voice in the e-mail, he says. Show off your expertise and your experience. Give people a solution to their problems. On the B-to-B side, Travelsavers, an Oyster Bay, N.Y.-based travel agency
E-MAIL MARKETING
coreconcepts
association owned by American Marketing Group Inc., sends informationbased e-mails to its members rather than taking a more promotional approach, Cates says. Even though they have a lot to sell, they dont do it very blatantly in any of their marketing communication. Its more about, Were going to show you that we know everything about [travel], so of course youre going to come to us.
anything. Youre just trying to increase the number of people you can send a targeted version of a follow-up to.
5. Try to go viral.
4. Be engaging.
When one Responsys client, a leading skin care company, launched a new skin care line, the company first sent an e-mail surveying customers on their skin types and then followed up with targeted e-mails touting products based on customers skin types. There were quite a bit of clicks on [the first e-mail], Sullivan says. To put that question out there didnt cost you
Ask yourself two questions when crafting e-mail content, Cates says: Will customers look forward to receiving it? Will they want to share it? If you send me a super-great deal, Im going to forward that to everyone I know in less than a second. According to Constant Contacts research, e-mails reach grows by 60% if they are shareable via social media, so you should create versions of every e-mail for your website and include Facebok and Twitter share buttons, Cates advises. Remember that an effective e-mail marketing strategy doesnt operate in a vacuum. The best e-mail strategies take into
account how customers interact with all of a companys touch points, Franco says. You really need a 360-degree view of them. You need to understand how theyre engaging with your call center, especially in the B-to-B world, and data on the CRM system. Its not just about what they do on the Web; its about how they engage with you as a company, including social media. Having a holistic view into that is important. m
For more on how e-mail marketing ts into a broader content marketing strategy, turn to page 16.
problemsolved
CASE STUDY
cbirkner@ama.org
Allstates Stand
The Problem
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, car accidents are the leading cause of death for American teenagers, taking the lives of 11 U.S. teens each day, on average. And for five consecutive years, more teen drivers have died on May 20 than on any other day of the year, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The cause for that dates deadly trend isnt clear, according to the insurance trade group, but whether its a result of high-school graduations and late-spring social events, or some other factor, Allstate wanted to shed light on the issue to help be a part of the solution. Northbrook, Ill.-based insurance company Allstate Corp. has sponsored teen driving safety programs throughout its history. The insurer currently offers safety tips and advice for parents who want to talk to their children about driving dangers on its website and Facebook pages. As part of its corporate advocacy programs, Allstate also sponsors the Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection (STANDUP) Act, federal legislation that would require states to institute a phased-in licensing program (called graduated driver licensing laws) in which teens could receive leaners permits no sooner than their 16th birthdays and full licenses no sooner than their 18th birthdays, among other restrictions. To combat teen driving deaths and encourage support for the STANDUP Act, Allstate created a Facebook-based teen driver safety initiative called Save 11 in May 2010, and then launched a new print, PR and Web-based campaign to promote the initiative in May 2011. Allstates Save 11 Facebook page is a place to support friends and families of fallen teens, the page says, and offers a user-friendly way for visitors to contact their congressmen to support graduated driver licensing legislation. To boost awareness of the need for such legislation, the companys 2011 campaign proposed a Facebook Blackout Week running from May 20 to 27, during which Facebook users were encouraged to black out their profile pictures to bring attention to the safe-driving initiative. Blacked-out full-page ads ran in national papers such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and USA Today, and in politically-targeted publications including The Washington Post, Roll Call, the National Journal, The Hill and Politico, and press releases were sent in English and Spanish to media outlets across the country to encourage consumers to visit Allstates Save 11 Facebook page for more information on the
Insurer employs a Facebook-based blackout campaign to shed light on teen driving deaths
STANDUP Act and to urge members of Congress to support the legislation. We wanted to mark [May 20] in a way that was unique, [and] also fostered engagement and harnessed the power of consumers to pressure Congress, says Karen Hornberger, Allstates director of corporate advocacy. We have a legacy of supporting seatbelt usage, mandatory airbag usage and drivers education in high schools, so [the STANDUP Act] really fits perfectly with our brand and what we stand for. Beyond prompting the public to put pressure on their congressional representatives, Allstate tried to make the STANDUP Act a more personal cause for consumers and congressmen by integrating stories from parents and families whove lost loved ones in car crashes into the Save 11 messaging, Hornberger says. This was really specific to the opinion elite in the Beltway. We have families who have unfortunately lost a teen to a car crash and we engage them on our behalf to speak to members of Congress, to write articles and op-eds, to share their stories in print advertising and on the Save 11 page. With Facebook as the campaigns primary communications vehicle, Allstate can engage consumers emotionally, Hornberger says. Facebook is social by design and we wanted that social aspect of it. Its all about people connecting with people and thats what this issue is about. Our 110,000 Facebook fans share their stories of loss. They mourn together. They help one another get through it. The Save 11 Facebook page, which initially launched in 2010, remains open and encourages visitors to contact their congressmen and show their support for graduated driver licensing laws.
The Fix
Allstate ran full-page ads like the above in national newspapers to bring awareness to its Facebook-based teen driving safety initiative.
Metrics
During Blackout Week, the Save 11 Facebook page gained 9,000 likes, an increase of 13% from the pages launch in May 2010. Total active users on the Facebook page increased 11% and average likes and comments increased 250%, according to Hornberger. As of press time, the page has more than 160,000 likes. Although the STANDUP Act has not yet passed, 700 e-mails were sent to Congress in support of the act as a result of the campaign, Hornberger says. We have an increased number of sponsors and co-sponsors on the bill, both in the Senate and in the House. We work closely with our lobbyists in the Beltway to support our efforts and we know, anecdotally, that weve gotten very positive feedback on the Save 11 campaign. The Save 11 campaign accomplished its overall goals while staying true to Allstates brand philosophy, she says. Weve gotten regular people to engage with this issue and to have their voice heard in Congress, and
theyre calling for this bill to be passed because teens are losing their lives every day. [Save 11] supports Allstates key brand tenets of being authentic and true, and really in the business of protecting people. Scott Osman, global director of corporate social responsibility at New York-based global brand consulting firm Landor Associates, says that Allstates national advocacy campaign outshines other insurance companies messages about safe teen driving, which often are buried on their websites. Anytime a company does something that supports a social good thats in alignment with their business, it strengthens their brand because it aligns who they are as a business with who they are as a social entity and consumers are looking for those kinds of companies, he says. m
COMPANY
Allstate Corp.
HEADQUARTERS
Northbrook, Ill.
CAMPAIGN TIMELINE
Save 11 page launched in May 2010; Blackout Week ran May 20-27, 2011
RESULTS
Page gained 9,000 likes during Blackout Week, a 13% bump from May 2010; average likes and comments increased 250%; 700 e-mails sent to Congress in support of the STANDUP Act
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AAKER ON BRANDING
BY DAVID AAKER
daaker@prophet.com
The Curse of Success

s Ive regularly noted in this column, the only way for a company to achieve real growth, with rare exceptions, is to create offerings that are so innovative that they contain must haves that define new subcategories. The alternative to build existing businesses with incremental innovationsin general does not create any sustainable sales growth. Look at any product category and the answer is the same. All of the meaningful changes in market position and sales of individual brands occur only when the brand creates a must have for which competitors lack visibility and credibility to be considered. However, most firms seldom foster such innovation and bring it to marketand in most cases, it is not because there is a lack of resources. Firms that are profitable and successful are actually less likely to fund market-changing innovation than firms that are struggling or in crisis. Why? One answer is the curse of success, which can take several forms. First on the list is the insidious and common stick to your knitting curse practiced by firms that have been successful by focusing on their core businesses: investing vigorously in incremental innovation to reduce costs and improve the offering, pursuing my brand is better than your brand marketing to garner more customers and higher loyalty, and building assets and capabilities that support the business. This commitment strategy, however, leads to, a.) a failure to see opportunities even
DAVID AAKER is vice chairman of San Franciscobased marketing consultancy Prophet and author of Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant. To read past columns, go to MarketingPower.com/ marketingnews and click on featured contributors. Follow Aaker at Twitter.com/davidaaker or on DavidAaker.com.
when they are obvious because the perspective doesnt encourage the consideration of major changes in offerings or customer motivations, or use contexts; b.) a bias against any innovation that may cannibalize the core business (Why invest in an offering that may kill the golden goose?); or, c.) a fear of going outside the existing set of skills and assets to make what is perceived to be a risky investment. Second, theres the related huge silo curse. Many firms such as McDonalds, Intel, Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola and Microsoft all have had innovation smothered by their huge brands and businesses that control the organizational power and access to resources. Any embryonic business idea simply will not matter financially, so why bother? At Microsoft, for example, Office and Windows are so large and profitable that any new venture looks insignificant. And these large, controlling business units will have no shortage of justifiable incremental innovation projects or marketing programs to pursue. Third, theres the competing story curse. There is always an alternative investment story. Nearly every executive in the organization will have a list of investments that are worthy, even indispensable, for his or her silo business. Even though most will represent marginal new offerings or more marketing that is unlikely to foster growth, they will have strong advocates. A proposed new offering, particularly a game changer, will compete for those resources.
Then there is the investment risk story associated with an investment in meaningful innovation: Technological barriers will not be overcome, the market is smaller than planned and customers will not respond. With decision influencers biased, the competing stories are likely to win. Finally, there is the short-term financials curse. The pressure to create short-term growth and margins, driven by the needs of stock investors and by managers with short job tenures, can be intense. Short-term results can best be obtained by diverting R&D funds to support or enhance the core businesses. Creating a new business platform is risky, expensive and likely to result in short-term financial pain. So how can substantial or transformational innovation occur in the face of these impediments? Its not easy, especially in the absence of a financial or market crisis. Here are three suggestions to set the wheels in motion:
1. Make the support of major innovations
a priority and explicitly built into your business plan. GE developed the Imagination Breakthrough (IB) initiative in which each business each year is charged to propose three breakthrough proposals with an ability to transform markets that would realize a $100 million potential in a three- to fiveyear time frame. Four years after it was launched, the IB initiative was adding $2 to $3 billion in sales each year and had some 45 projects under way.
2. Centralize all or some resource
allocation so that the huge silos do not control and stifle meaningful innovation, and embryonic ventures that do not fit into an existing silo have a stable source of funding. Some firms, including GE, have an internal venture capital source of funding. that encourage and reward major innovations and risk taking. GE, for example, has augmented its performance measurement indicators to include innovation- and growth-oriented measures to incent managers to take innovation risks.
3. Create a culture supported by measures
Allowing and enhancing real, marketchanging innovation has never been more vital. Being aware of the curses of success is the first step, and changing the organizations planning process, structure and culture is the second. m
10
SOCIAL MEDIA
viewpoint
BY JOSH BERNOFF
josh@bernoff.com
Living in Facebooks Bizarro World
f you thought it was strange to see so much of marketing sucked into the Web, hold onto your seats. A new parallel Web is emerging to deliver much of what weve grown used to online. Who runs this parallel Web? Facebook. You cant ignore it, but based on research from my colleagues Nate Elliott and Sean Corcoran (the Forrester report Its Time to Make Facebook Marketing Work, from December 2, 2011), youre having a great deal of trouble mastering it. Ninety-six of the top 100 advertisers are using Facebook, but marketers often lack clear focus on what they want to accomplish there. Facebooks rules and the ways that it organizes content not only confuse marketers, but also often change without notice. And measuring success on Facebook is challenging, since the easiest thing to measurethe number of fans of your brand pagehas a limited correlation to traditional marketing metrics. So take a deep breath and well try to bring some sense to the bizarro world of Facebook, in four steps. You could concentrate on generating word of mouth and awareness through creating things for consumers to share, or you could simply drive leads from your Facebook page to a traditional site, as John Deere did: It found Facebooks lead generation to be comparable to direct mail.
4. Integrate Facebook into your full
1. Focus carefully on your objectives.
2. Create a brand page that gives fans
a reason to regularly engage with the brand. Successful pages go far beyond likes, leveraging information collected from fans or building social apps to create a richer experience. For example, Target ran a Valentines Day promotion in 2010 called Super Love Sender that allowed people to send personalized valentines and to vote on (and track) the charity to which Target would donate $1 million.
marketing mix. Use Facebook Connect on your website to identify visitors and connect them with their Facebook friends. Put Facebook into broader campaigns using other sites like Twitter and YouTube, or even offline connections. Corona did this when it put the faces of its Facebook fans onto a Times Square billboard, generating 1.5 million impressions per day and feeding into 200,000 more likes for the brand.
3. Use the full toolkit that Facebook
provides to increase your reach and customers engagement. This means using tools like Facebook ads, events and apps. For example, last spring travel site Expedia and digital agency Efficient Frontier used Facebook ads to drive more than 1 million fans into its game application called FriendTrips. Events are an exciting way to boost involvement: Glacau Vitaminwater has used Facebook events to drive fans to its live events around the country.
Heres how some Facebook-based marketing programs have succeeded by using a combination of the four elements. Social enterprise software firm Buddy Media makes Facebook tools that many popular brands are using and LOrals Salon Facebook Program is a good example. It provided a kit to local salons that the salons then used on their own Facebook pages. More than 6,000 salons now improve their own Facebook pages with LOralsupplied elements such as how-to videos, an appointment booking engine, information on products and a Facebook advertising credit. Was LOrals Facebook program worth it? Since it reached 1.7 million clients, it appears that it was. Dell used Facebook in a businessto-business setting. Its Trade Secrets program, developed by the social media and WOM agency Zcalo Group, distributed sleek Vostro V130 laptops to smallbusiness influencers and then invited them onto a Facebook page where they could share recommendations and encourage
others to try the product. Integrating the Facebook page with other social channels, the program generated results including product reviews, 82 blog posts, more than 1,600 tweets and more than 5 million earned impressions. Bacardi mastered the Facebook channel with its Like It Live, Like It Together promotion, created by digital agency Blast Radius. In a six-week period starting last May, Bacardi fans liked randomly featured items on the brands Facebook page (for example, one promotion asked people to like either a pizza truck or a taco truck). The engaging promotion gained Bacardi more than 145,000 fans in the U.S. and boosted its YouTube channel views by 67%. And working with digital agency iCrossing, Ally Bank combined blog posts, articles, tweets, infographics, Facebook posts and custom Facebook tabs to create a swirl of shareable content, leading to 3 million impressions and $128 million in new deposits. Looking back on these successful Facebook programs, we can see a few common elements, such as expert partners like Zcalo and Blast Radius, and how Facebook drives connections across the Web and beyond. None of the marketers in this diverse set settled for simple likes and brand pages. Instead, they all found ways to engage their customers. Thats a skill that many of us have lost sight of, but perhaps the bizarro world of Facebook will bring us back in touch with this most fundamental of marketing values. m
JOSH BERNOFF is senior vice president of idea development at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. He is the co-author of Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business and Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, both published by the Harvard Business Review Press. Groundswell was named book of the year by the AMA in 2009. To read past columns, go to MarketingPower.com/ marketingnews and click on "Featured Contributors." Follow Bernoff at Twitter.com/jbernoff or on Bernoff.com.
11
Water conservation has been billed as the most important environmental issue of the 21st century, yet few American consumers are altering their behaviorsand fewer companies are trying to motivate them to do so
cbirkner@ama.org
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1.2 billion
people live in areas with inadequate water supplies.

INTERNATIONAL WATER MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE
ccording to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, at least two-thirds of the United States is either experiencing or bracing for local, regional or statewide water shortages. Parts of the United States use up to 80% of their available freshwater resources, making future water shortages more probable, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientic and Cultural Organization. Globally, 1.2 billion people live in areas with inadequate water supplies and by 2025, two-thirds of the world will contend with water scarcity, according to the International Water Management Institute. Did you know that the worlds water shortages are that dire? Youre not alone if you didntand youre in good company if you have yet to do anything about it. A 2011 study by the London-based Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management says that consumers around the world are generally unaware of their own water consumption, tend not to change their behavior and have a general lack of knowledge about water management issues. Water is still a really inexpensive resource across the country and until water rates go up, the vast majority of people arent going to think twice about conserving water, says Park Howell, president of Park&Co, a Phoenix-based marketing agency that specializes in sustainability and has worked on nationwide water conservation campaigns. Its a big environmental issue thats creeping up on consumers that they dont even realize is at their doorstep. While consumer behaviors have yet to change, such change is inevitable, experts say, which makes water conservation a powerful and prescient cause for companies to get behindincorporating water-saving strategies into both their day-to-day operations and their marketing plans, and taking the lead on water-based public awareness efforts. Its going to be the No. 1 environmental issue for North America, if not the entire world, in the next few years [because] the population continues to expand and our infrastructure is not keeping up. Consumer product manufacturers are [realizing] this is going to become much more visible over the next decade and if theyre there as a pioneer saying, Let us show you how to use our product to save water, then [theyre] the hero, Howell says.
Unlike many other natural resources, water has no substitute.

BRIAN RICHTER, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
CORPORATE CONSERVATION
DISTILLING THE MESSAGE
Howell is no stranger to effective water-based marketing strategies. In 1999, his firm developed a campaign for the city of Mesa, Ariz., aimed at encouraging residents to conserve water. The campaign, called Water: Use it Wisely, offers simple water conservation tips on a website and in TV, print and radio ads. Initially used by local utilities, the Water: Use It Wisely messaging later was adopted by more than 400 public and private entities across the United States, with corporate sponsors including Lowes and Home Depot, and is still active nationwide. The campaign model is important, Howell says, because it allows utilities that have limited financial and personnel resources to co-brand a national campaign and benefit from its universal theme: There are a number of ways to save water, and they all start with you. We learned early that people across the country said, Dont tell me to save water; show me how, Howell says. The campaign demonstrated to corporations that environmental engagement can be fun, thoughtprovoking and easy for an individual to do.
Many municipalities have no choice but to promote more positive consumer behaviors regarding water usage and on the corporate side, many companies know that it makes good business sense to change their organizational behaviors when it comes to water usagewhether or not they decide to promote it. [Water conservation] is a rapidly growing area in the corporate world, says Brian Richter, director of global freshwater strategies at the Nature Conservancy, an Arlington, Va.-based global conservation organization that works with government agencies at local, state and federal levels around the world to evaluate water efficiency. More and more companies are seeing the need to get involved in looking at their water use: how much they use, where they use it and the certainty or risk associated with that use. Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft Foods Inc., which has worked with the Nature Conservancy in the past, reduced water consumption at its manufacturing plants by 21% from 2005 to 2010 and plans to further reduce water consumption by an additional 15% by 2015, according to a company spokesman. In 2010, Chicago-based MillerCoors initiated a study of water-related supply risks in its supply chain and worked with the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable, a partnership of global beverage companies devoted to environmental issues, to create an industry approach to water footprinting. Sustainability benefits the business and benefits the environment, and for us, we really want to be a recognized leader in the space, says Kim Marotta, vice president of corporate social responsibility at MillerCoors. We need to understand the watersheds of where our breweries are located so we protect the quality and quantity of water long term. MillerCoors also sponsors the beverage page on the Mother Nature Network website, which includes news, educational videos and tips on sustainability issues such as water conservation best practices for businesses. Other than industry-focused initiatives and some brand sponsorships of clean water efforts, MillerCoors doesnt engage in much water-related cause marketing yet because other environmental issues, such as recycling, attract more consumer attention, Marotta says. That organizational rather than cause-marketing-related approach to water conservation isnt atypical among American businesses. At Atlantabased Coca-Cola Co., most water conservation efforts are conducted behind the scenes as well, at least in the United States. As part of its partnership with the Nature Conservancy, Coca-Cola worked with academics at the Global Environment & Technology Foundation on a report detailing methods by which companies can measure and account for the
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By 2025, two-thirds of the world

will contend with water scarcity.
INTERNATIONAL WATER MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE
benefits of water conservation work in communities and watersheds. CocaCola and the Nature Conservancy also worked with private land owners and cooperatives in north Texas to expand grasslands and reintroduce native species to restore prairies, which helps with water quality. We have evolved in our understanding and response to water issues over the last decade, says Greg Koch, Coca-Colas managing director of global water stewardship. Weve recognized the stresses water is under, from quality, to quantity, to droughts and scarcity. Plant performance is important and weve maintained that, but its not enough for us to take care of the water we need for our business because water is so fundamental to life. Its in our vested business interest to play a role in watersheds and communities, and in awareness and education. Richter says that companies must first get a handle on their own water usage before they can engage in any meaningful water-related cause marketing initiatives. Its difficult for a company to take a position of encouraging its consumers to be responsible for their water use until the company assumes the responsibility for its own water.
FROM A DRIP TO A DELUGE
Coca-Cola therefore is navigating the water as a corporate cause strategy carefully, introducing only a few water conservation programs domestically until consumers are more receptive to water-related messaging. Instead, Cokes environmental messaging in the United States focuses on recycling and species conservation efforts, such as the companys recent holiday campaign in which Coke cans and bottles were white rather than red to support the World Wildlife Funds polar bear conservation programs. These efforts more closely match the American consumers mindset, says Lisa Manley, Coca-Colas director of sustainability communications. Consumer interests vary country by country. We need to understand areas of interest within our sustainability area that are most relevant to a particular community and work to tailor our communications against those. Here in the U.S., weve seen a lot more interest around packaging and recycling. In [global] markets, we see more of a defined interest around water, Manley says. Overseas, Coca-Cola is doing more overt water conservation initiatives, including running ads such as the one in its Latin American marketing campaign, Every Bottle Tells a Story, that features a man doing water stewardship work in communities in Mexico. And during the FIFA World
Cup in South Africa in 2010, Coca-Cola ran ads promoting the Replenish Africa Initiative, which helps bring water to drought-ridden communities throughout the continent. Coca-Colas site-specific and consumer-sensitive strategy is wise, experts say. [Water conservation] is certainly not on the forefront of American consumers minds, but it is on the forefront of global consumers minds, says Karen Barnes, vice president of insight at Shelton Group Inc., a Knoxville, Tenn.-based advertising agency focused on bringing sustainability to the mass market. When corporations are ready to engage American consumers on water conservation awareness, though, they could take a page from the playbook of Piscataway, N.J.-based faucet and toilet maker American Standard Brands. American Standards water conservation efforts are organic in that the companys products handle consumers water use, so water conservation as a corporate cause is an obvious fit. Jeannette Long, vice president of digital marketing, doesnt deny that fact but says that by promoting water efficiency, both the company and the environment can benefit. Water conservation is part of American Standards DNA, she says. Every product that we make is a water receptacle or has water that passes through it, so we feel like its our responsibility to design products that will function exceptionally well and use as little water as possible. The bathroom accounts for 75% of water used in the home, so if were designing the products, its our responsibility to create the best product and still protect our natural resources. American Standard recently teamed up with the Environmental Protection Agency on a water conservation program called WaterSense and developed water-efficient faucets, showerheads and toilets. As part of that program, American Standard worked to change consumer perception that water-efficient appliances dont perform as well as regular appliances, Long says. Our biggest goal is to convince consumers that more water does not equal better performance. Weve reduced water in the faucet category by 20% and in the showerhead category by 40%, and we do testing to ensure that the performance the customers going to experience is exactly the same as when they used more water. To tout its products water- and money-saving capabilities, American Standard conducted the Responsible Bathroom campaign from late 2009 to early 2011. The campaign included print, TV and mobile marketing, with trailers featuring American Standard product exhibits stopping at home shows around the country. It was critical for us to demonstrate that you dont need as much water. [We] came up with demonstrations that showed, This toilet flushes 24 golf balls with 20% less water, Long says. Everybody walked away saying, Wow, thats impressive. Responsible Bathroom ads promoted water-saving behaviors, emphasizing that a family of four, for instance, can save 16,000 gallons of water a year by using water-saving appliances and water-efficient practices. The campaign included a Responsible Bathroom Sweepstakes, which gave away vacations to families who submitted creative ways to save water. A water calculator on the Responsible Bathroom section of American Standards website also estimated the cost savings of using water-efficient appliances. Getting consumers to adopt water-saving habits is a challenge, Long admits. Some of them wont be interested in water conservation, but there is this message that says: Youre going to use less water; your performance is going to be just as good, actually better than when you were using more water, and youre going to save money on your water bill. Youre going to save energy because youre not heating as much water for your shower and your faucets. We talk to them on that side, for people who arent environmentally conscious. To introduce future generations to the issue of water conservation, American Standard partners with the Green Education Foundation on a curriculum for New Jersey schools that shows children how much water is being used in the bathroom. Students conduct audits of plumbing products, figuring out how much water they could save if they replaced fixtures in their school. We were effective [in] bringing younger generations into it because they are more socially minded as they start to hear about natural resources being used up, Long says. The company also donated $1 million to the Nature Conservancys water conservation awareness programs in 2010, and works with
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Water is going to be the most important natural resource and environmental issue of the 21st century.
BRIAN RICHTER, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
organizations such as the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials and the EPA on plumbing infrastructure testing. American Standard also meets with congressmen about issues that relate to the plumbing industry and water conservation, all of which are important to the end consumer. Howell applauds American Standards conservation efforts. Theyve got products that use water and facilitate the flow of water, so theyre a good corporate citizen, going out of their way to build water savings into the product and teach the behavior change. Technology alone is not going to save this planet, no matter how energy-efficient the showerhead, he says. For Cleveland-based Great Lakes Brewing Co., which sells a waterbased product with a water-related brand name, water conservation also is a natural fit. Our product is made of 95% water, so its the main ingredient of our product, says Saul Kliorys, environmental programs manager at Great Lakes. Weve called our company Great Lakes Brewing Co., Lake Erie is one mile away: Those are the reasons were interested in [water conservation]. Its a resource thats getting scarcer and scarcer. The brewers cause marketing efforts include a music festival in Cleveland called Burning River Fest thats dedicated to promoting water conservation. Money raised at the festival goes to water conservation organizations such as the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership in Northeast Ohio, Lake Erie Waterkeeper and a rain harvesting program for urban gardens at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. Great Lakes also works with organizations that conduct educational projects at local schools, including Drink Local, Drink Tap in Cleveland and Tinkers Creek Watershed Partners in Twinsburg, Ohio. The brewers water conservation efforts are an obvious tie-in, Kliorys says, and they help to boost the companys brand image. In Cleveland, folks like our brand a lot, so we asked them why they do, and the primary reason is for the quality of the beer but most people are also supportive of the sustainability initiatives. Its definitely an added benefit.
then dont talk the talk. If its about water, you better be operating from the most water-efficient breweries, understanding your footprint and making water conservation efforts in your supply chain. Otherwise, its going to be noticeable that its greenwashing and not part of the DNA of the brand, she says. Its not as though we woke up in 2008 and said: Boy, theres some successful sustainability campaigns out there. We should really look at this. Its [been] a decades-long commitment. Echoes Coca-Colas Manley: Todays consumer is incredibly savvy and incredibly aware of a company matching their behaviors with their messaging, so it would be folly for us to communicate with something that we didnt feel we were engaging in a responsible way around. Weve got all of the proof points that one might need to feel comfortable beginning to think about how do you convey the message to consumersand not just convey it in terms of how do you educate them, but how do you invite them along in the journey? I see it as an area where well have increasing engagement with consumers in the future. Water will never be just the cause du jour. Rather, its a matter of survival, the Nature Conservancys Richter says, so its a worthwhile investment to get behind water conservation now. Water is going to be the most important natural resource and environmental issue of the 21st century. Population growth is going to put more and more pressure on limited water supplies, so its going to be critically important for everyone, especially corporations, to be actively involved in promoting activities that will protect those water supplies and use them more efficiently, he says. Unlike many other natural resources, water has no substitute. m
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BE CONSERVATIVE
As with any cause marketing initiative, authenticity is key to companies water conservation messages, whether consumer-driven or covert. Water has always been a top priority for MillerCoors as a business, which helps in its bid for authenticity, Marotta says. Any time youre connecting with a consumer and talking about the importance of any aspect of sustainability, it absolutely needs to be authentic. If youre not walking the walk,
15
Content marketing is one of the it terms of 2012and with good reason

BY ELISABETH A. SULLIVAN | EDITOR
esullivan@ama.org
16
hanks to social networks, the line between professional and personal communications is blurring. Regardless of where you work or what generation youre in, its likely that you have at least a LinkedIn pageif not a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a Google+ account, too. And even if you initially signed up for a social network account for personal reasons, youve most likely started to connect with business colleagues through social channels, or been asked to engage in some form of conversation or promotion using your social handle on behalf of your company. Welcome to the world of content marketing, that informational, educational, conversational marketing tactic that everyones talking about and nearly everyones engaging in, whether or not they realize it. Content marketing is a broad term that applies to everything from company newsletters and white papers, to blogs and podcasts, to Facebook conversations and LinkedIn posts. The aim of this marketing tactic is to create and disseminate content that will engage customers and potential customers by offering them something of value: industry insights and trends, tips and how-to demonstrations, and other relevant information. Of course, writing effectively engaging, non-promotional content for your website, blog and social media pages takes practice and a good amount of forethought. It can appear particularly tough for B-to-B brands that dont have the natural panache that their flashier B-to-C counterparts do online, attracting fans and followers seemingly just by showing up. Content marketing is worth the effort, though, because for a minimal financial investment, you can reap big rewards in terms of brand awareness and perception, and the all-important metric of website traffic. MN recently had a wide-ranging conversation with Beth Monaghan, co-founder and principal of InkHouse, a communications firm based in Waltham, Mass., that specializes in developing social content for B-to-B clients such as Raytheon, Spark Capital and Zmags, to get a big-picture view of what it takes to develop an effective B-to-B content marketing strategy. Read on for some expert pointers.
kind of bringing it to the human impact. Why does what we do matter and how will it matter in the future?
Q: Is that why you recommend starting with a blog post?
Because thats kind of a good column format, in which people can delve into thought leadership without getting into white paper territory?
A: Yeah, and we usually view a blog as the hub of social content from
which lots of other things can sprout. First we start with a calendar. Lets create a content calendar that logically lays out your point of view and lets come up with different topics. Those might become chapters in an e-book or sections in a white paper down the road, but its easy to crank out blog posts and, hopefully, at some point you can aggregate those together to be something bigger. And you cant have a blog and just pray that people come to it. You need to push that content out. We talk a lot about seeding and syndicating your blog content, and e-mail is a critical way to do that.
Q: How do you do that? Are you tapping into your customer
base and when youre putting together a post that you think would be of interest to a certain segment, you target them? Is it just a message that says something like, Hey, we have some thoughts on such and such?
Q: InkHouse creates what you call social contentor content
thats meant to engage and prompt conversationprimarily for B-to-B clients and you say that companies have to be willing to share their points of view in their digital content. Is it tough for B-to-B execs to be comfortable with having a point of view and not just toeing the company line or coming across as professional and competent in their communications?
A: It can be for some of them. Having a point of view is so personal and so

individual, but we have a process that we try to help clients walk through. Your point of view needs to be relevant enough to be part of the conversation thats taking place but differentiated enough to stand out. It doesnt really matter what industry youre in, but if youre a B-to-B company and youre dealing with security software, what do you think is going to happen in the next ve years? What is your vision for where this is going to go? Coming up with a point of view sometimes means thinking about products and services, but it really means thinking about the problem that youre solving and where that problem might take us in five to 10 years, and how the metrics for leadership might change in those five to 10 years. Its
CONTENT MARKETING is worth the effort because for a minimal nancial investment, you can reap big rewards in terms of brand awareness and perception, and the all-important metric of website trafc.
A: It can certainly do what you just suggested and if you have a certain
list that is really vertically focused and you have an article that you just wrote, or a blog post, that is super relevant to them, absolutely push that out to them and say: I know that this is an issue thats important to you. I thought that youd be interested in my point of view.
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We dont recommend for all clients that they be EVERYWHERE. It depends on the NATURE of what theyre trying to do.
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But more often, we find that our efforts in social content are all ways to push people back to your blog or back to your site, so we frequently find that doing a news summary e-maillets say that you do it once every two weeks or once a month where you pick these are the four to five top blog posts that we have put out in the past x period of time. You dont repost all of them because thats way too long. Just write a paragraph snippet that summarizes the topic and links back to it. We find that that can be really powerful in driving some traffic back to your blog posts.
Q: A lot of companies are just getting into content marketing,

really, and then theyre trying to jump right into using social channels. How do you recommend integrating social media channels into an overall content marketing strategy?
A: First and foremost, there are the basics. You need to have social sharing tools in your e-mail, on your blog in each post. Make the author easy to nd on Twitter and LinkedIn. Put it in their bios on your website. Just make it easy for people to nd you through social channels. Thats the most basic thing you can do. And when I say that, that also means that you have to have those social channels built out. Its inevitably better to tie a blog post to a person than to an entity. In Twitter, people are more likely to follow a person than a company unless its a major consumer brand like Coke. Its hard to have a point of view if youre a company, but its easy to have a conversation if its a person, so we find that individual social media presences can complement the corporate presence.
Q: What kind of subject line do you put on that kind of e-mail? A: Yeah, thats a great question. I think that you have to brand it and short
is always better. I just was reading somewhere this morning that the ideal length of a subject line for an e-mail campaign is, like, four to 15 characters, which isnt very many. We do public relations, so its always a challenge in pitching a reporter to gure out what your subject line is. But asking a question is a really good thing to do because it makes people think, or if you pose a point of view. This is a terrible subject line: InkHouse newsletter, November 2011. That is a terrible subject line, unless it is something that people have come to expect and open every single time. We did one at the end of the year that was Top InkHouse Posts of 2011. Thats a good one because people are like, OK, these are the best posts. If youre not doing something that is thematic, you might pull out a headline from one of the posts that you think is the most eye-catching and just use that.
Q: So thats the crux. A lot of B-to-B companies are struggling

to understand where social media ts into their strategies, but youre advocating for having the subject matter experts out there having a social presence and representing the company.
A: Most denitely. Yes, that is the most successful way you can do it. Q: Whos doing this well? Are there clients of yours or other
brands out there that you think marketers should follow?
Q: Would you ever advocate for putting the same content that
you have in a blog post in e-mail form? A lot of B-to-C companies do something like that. Diaper brands, for example, send new moms care information for infants. It goes beyond the diaper brand and its actual content in the e-mail, and yes, they link back to a longer version of it on their site, but theyre giving you a signicant amount of information in the e-mail.
A: I think that Raytheon does it pretty well. We dont manage all of their
blog content, by any means, but a bunch of their executives are really active on Twitter. Theyre super savvy about social media.
Q: Who are they hoping to reach through a channel like
A: You know, I often dont. Some people do and its a fair thing to do, but
it kind of goes against the trying to get people to your site philosophy. It violates two principles for me: one is the brevity and two is trying to get people to go to your site. If you give them everything that they need in the e-mail, theyre not going to go to your site to read more and they might not discover something else on your site. Its the same principle that we use when were seeding content to other places. Lots of publications or websites will take blog posts that youve already posted on your site, so we always recommend that you post a portion of the blog post and then have a link at the end for people to read the rest. That way theyre going to your site.
Twitter? Are they just trying to be accessible to customers or are they distributing thought leadership?
A: I think that theyre thinking of it from a social responsibility standpoint

and for thought leadership. We dont recommend for all clients that they be everywhere. It depends on the nature of what theyre trying to do. Facebook is a really personal social network and people dont like to be marketed to on Facebook, but they do like to have conversations. For example, Im one of the primary bloggers for InkHouse and I infrequently post my links to my blog posts on my personal Facebook page. I put them all on my company page and if I happen to have business colleagues who are friends with me,
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I kind of view social content and PR in the same lens these days. We always talk about the transformation from broadcasting your message at people and hoping that it sticks somewhere, to REALLY HAVING CONVERSATIONS.
then they can go to my company page and see it. But I often do not put business-related things on Facebook. However, when Im recruiting, I use Facebook aggressively. We always kind of think about Facebook as the face of your company, as the personality of your company, so if youre just going to pump it full of product news and services news and press releases, its not going to work. It needs to be about your culture.
Q: Do you have general guidelines for how to consider each
channel? For example: Blogs are for thought leadership. E-mail and Twitter are great for teasers to get you back to the blogs, to get you back to the website. Do you determine what use is best for each channel?
A: We kind of do. When we create the content calendar, we put all of the
social channels as check boxes and for each piece of content, well say, OK, well, this ones relevant for Twitter, this ones relevant for Facebook or Google+, or LinkedIn. Content can be great on LinkedIn, too, because you can engage in conversations around your content. If youre a member of the right groups, you can take your content and you can say: This is a really interesting conversation. I just wrote an article about this on my blog. Heres my point of view in two sentences and heres a link back if you want to check it out.
Q: Lets say that youre a small to medium-sized business.
Youre just starting to esh out your content on your website that goes beyond promotional content or plain, old product information. How do you start, and how do you integrate these channels?
A: It sounds daunting and it can be. I mean, thats why people hire people
like us to manage it for them. I would start with a calendar of content and the type of content that you develop is going to dictate how you use social channels. You may nd that your content lends itself heavily to video, then lets make sure that we use YouTube to get the word outand Facebook, which does video very nicely, and Google+, which also does video nicely. What we try to get people thinking about is that the social networks, when youre doing content marketing, are really just channels, so when I mentioned seeding and syndicating your content earlier, I mean pushing it out, making sure people see it and not just waiting for them to come to your website. Twitter is a great way to do that. You have to cultivate your following on Twitter to make it useful for you, which takes time. Youre not going to have a thousand followers in a couple of months if you just started today, but if you work at it, and you find somebody who can give you good advice about where to find relevant people to follow and how to gradually engage in conversation and build up your following, it can be a great channel for your content and it can get lots of traction that way.
Q: When it comes to resources, should there be one person or

one department thats centralizing this effort?
A: It depends on the organization, but yes, there should be one person

whos in charge of the calendar of content, guring out which networks it should be posted on and then asking others to use their personal social handlesif they feel comfortableto post it. It really helps if you have one person whos in charge of organizing it because its a little bit like herding cats. Often, youre going to have multiple authors and multiple people tweeting. Sometimes you dont, which makes it easier, but its great to have more people. You just have to kind of herd them, make sure that you have your content and you get it up on time somebody whos tending the calendar.
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Q: Do you also want to make sure that the subject matter experts are writing with a specic voice or tone?
A: Yes, you denitely need an editor. When we think about our blog, we require everybody who works at InkHouse to contribute to the blog because we think its important for them to understand what its like to put your point of view out there. Its so different from just writing a press release. But we have a lens, an editorial policy, and that is we have two kinds of blog posts. Eighty percent of our posts or more should be something that is relevant and informative for a current or prospective client. The others are about recruiting or accolades for InkHouse. But most of it is how-to, useful information for our clients.
I kind of view social content and PR in the same lens these days. We always talk about the transformation from broadcasting your message at people and hoping that it sticks somewhere, to really having conversations. To have a powerful and engaging conversation with a target audience, you need to have great content and a point of view. It means that youve spent the time to think about the important things that are shaping your industry and youre sharing that, and youre opening yourself up to a conversation that can be so much more meaningful than somebody just reading your press release. m
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For more on content marketing, visit MarketingPower.com/marketingnews.
Q: What are the biggest barriers to entry once a company has

decided to create a content marketing strategy online?
A: It depends on the company and the person. For some, its, Oh, my gosh,
I can think of three blog posts and then I dont know what else to say. We lead sessions on what to blog about, like: OK, lets think about lists. Everybody loves lists. They get tons of retweets. Tips and tricks. Look at what you already have created. Do you have white papers? Do you have op-eds? Do you have webinars? What do you have that you can look at and pull things out of that could create that content? And read the news. Every single day, theres probably something that youre reading that you have a point of view about that is relevant to your industry. We have a listening post where we monitor social and media channels for relevant information that we feed to our clients, but its easy enough to do if youre paying attention. The second thing that we get from some companies that arent as socialmedia-inclined is, I dont want to get on Twitter. And thats a fair concern. Its a lot of work. Lots of people have folks who will manage it for them. Other people will find that they get into it a little bit and then they start liking it.
Q: What do you consider to be a good following on Twitter for

a B-to-B brand?
A: Its so hard to say. A thousand or more is always a good number of followers to start with. Its hard to get up to a thousand. Its really tough.
Look at what you already have created. Do you have WHITE PAPERS? Do you have OP-EDS? Do you have WEBINARS? What do you have that you can look at and pull things out of that could create that content?
Q: What kind of metrics should you have in place to gauge the

effectiveness of your content strategy?
A: Google Analytics, or your website analytics, is the best thing because

there are two things you want to look at. You want to look at trafc spikes, which Im sure people are doing anyway, but you can put in some handy annotations that will show you, We put our blog post up this day and we got a trafc spike, so that content was really engaging folks. Or, We got our blog post syndicated here and we actually saw that source become one of our top 10 sources for referral trafc to our site. Those are some metrics that are very tangible that you can say, OK, I understand that this type of content is working and this type of channel is working.
Q: Is one of your selling points the idea that if a company does

this well, the investment is more about time than money?
A: If you decide on your own to invest the time and do this, yeah, its more
time than money. You could do it. You could denitely do it and it would drive measureable results for you.
21
knowledgebase
MARKETING AUTOMATION/PROJECT MANAGEMENT
10 Minutes With
Robert Kanes
Producer at Hot Studio Inc.
esullivan@ama.org
T
22
he corporate world is well-versed in collaborating through e-mails and Outlook calendars and FTPs, but increasingly, marketers are looking for a better way to keep team members in sync and projects on track, and to have a way to clearly report on progress and end results. Enter marketing automation tools: software and systems that can help you organize and manage your workow, and ideally will make your team run more efficiently.
To get a sense of how a marketing agency or department successfully implements a project management system and navigates the challenging ramp-up period to fully integrate the tool into its processes, MN recently spoke with Robert Kanes, a producer at Hot Studio Inc., a San Francisco-based experience design rm with clients such as AOL, Charles Schwab, eBay, Gilt Groupe and Nike. Kanes and his colleagues chose 37signals Basecamp as their primary project management tool but also regularly rely on a handful of others. Kanes generously shares tips and insights that he has gleaned from helping to run Hot Studios carefully orchestrated project management process which frankly could use an organizational system of its own.
knowledgebase
Q: Tell me a bit about Hot Studio. You call it an experience design company, but you handle everything from customer experience strategy, to brand and website design, to content management solutions. Could you explain what your work entails? A: Hot Studio is about 15 years old now and it was founded by Maria Giudice, and she is still the CEO here and the creative guiding force for the studio, and she has grown this company into about 60 people here in San Francisco and then a second ofce in New York thats about 15 people. When the company started out, she was doing a full range of traditional design services and moved very quickly into Web design, and her focus has always been user-centric design. Thats really the focus of the way that work has always been done here. I think things have expanded to the point where no ones just doing a single point of experience in a design project. Its not just a flat website as it was years ago; its very deep and richsites that are maybe connected to [content management systems] or maybe theyre actually applications that are living online and not sites, or maybe they connect to a larger piece of branding strategy or customer experience strategy, or maybe its part of a product life cycle project. Things have gotten very broad and thats why the [agencys] label has switched to experience design because its really looking at all of the customer touch points from a user-centered design perspective. We get a number of different kinds of projects coming through the studio and the practice areas here have expanded from the traditional triouser experience, visual design and engineeringto other things now. Theres a strategy group, a social innovation group and a product innovation group. Some people come to us and all they may need is the strategy piece, or maybe strategy plus some kind of wireframe development. Some people need everything through visual design. Some people need everything through build. Some people need everything through post-delivery support. Generally, a project team would comprise a minimum of three or four people for something very small and quick: a producer, an executive sponsor and a creative lead, plus maybe a [user experience] designer and a visual designer. Thats a basic, core team. Something much bigger might have multiple [user experience] designers, multiple visual designers, multiple engineers. It might also need a technology consulting person or something along those lines. Q: Do you often work with third-party partners, too? A: We do have third-party partners that we work with, technology partners. That happens from time to time.
Q: Now that weve set the stage, why did you decide to integrate collaboration software? A: Thats kind of a fundamental thing because no matter what the project is or who youre working with, everybody needs the same thing: They need good, clear communication and they need some kind of a dashboard so they can see where they are and they can have one hub that they can go to for crucial pieces of material. When we start a project and do the kick-off, what Ill usually say to the client is: Heres the thing that we use. Use it for anything that you think is material to the project record. Thats not to say that people arent going to be trading individual e-mails on the side about various little things here and there, but if theres anything that is important to the project record, it should go through this hub that were using. And the more featured the hub is, the better that collaboration will be, and the better that dashboard is going to be in terms of communication and visibility. Q: Do all of your clients use the hub and meticulously record everything that should be in there, or is it a harder sell to get them involved? A: Personally speaking, Ive never found it to be an issue at all. Generally, people either are familiar with the tool that we happen to use and recommend for the project, or they get introduced to it and they tend to love it. The only hiccups Ive ever seen are a couple of companies that might have had some security concerns up front, but we explained to them that its a private thing and people have to be granted access to it, and they have their own password. Once they understand how it works, its not an issue.
page that is a private branded area for the client and allows them to access click-throughs that they can view in a browser, which makes the work viewable in a very real environment. And then when were doing build projects and theyre in engineering, were using Pivotal Tracker quite heavily for that part of the process.
Q: You guys are working in the digital space and Im guessing that youre working with relatively tech-savvy clients, but it seems as if you have a lot of organizational software and systems involved in your processes. A lot of companies are struggling with even getting employees and clients to move beyond using e-mail and Outlook, and you have so many more things at play here. How do you keep a handle on all of it? A: There are a few little tricks that can make a big difference. As a producer, if I start to see people posting things privately through e-mail that are not going through Basecamp, but I think they should be there, Ill ag that and then I will re-post it myself so that its in the record. And Ill include them on that thread so that they can see that Ive re-posted it and that just helps reinforce that behavior. If people are using it and theyre seeing that its actually working really well, and its creating a lot of clarity around what were doing, then theyre happy to use it. There are other little things that we encourage them to do. Basecamp is also a place where people post files; theres this aspect to the file management piece of it thats really nice in the sense that if you keep a file name the same as you re-post it, it just keeps the most current version visible at the top and archives the others. It kind of takes some of the work off the end user. We
No matter what the project is or who youre working with, everybody needs the same thing: They need good, clear communication and they need some kind of a dashboard so they can see where they are.
always encourage people, rather than just posting something directly, to create a message and attach the file to the message. It still gets posted to the file area, but then theres a thread that exists around that posting so that if theres any conversation or questions, or issues around that, its all captured in that particular file. You dont have to go hunt it down.
Q: What was the ramp-up process like internally? Was it tough to get employees on board with the systems?
Q: Do you use Basecamp along with other tools, or is that your primary collaboration tool? A: Thats the primary one, but there are others that we do use. We are using Google Docs internally very heavily and we are now using it sometimes externally. We often create client extranets in addition to Basecamp. Thats something that we generally do when we get to a point where there are visual designs to review because it makes it very easy to create, essentially, an index
23
knowledgebase
Kanes and his colleagues at Hot Studio keep themselves organized and their projects on track by using a robust marketing automation toolkit that includes Basecamp, Google Docs, custom extranets, Pivotal Tracker and Workamajig.
A: Not at all. People here are obviously very tech-savvy. They tend to be early adopters of everything anyway and I think that there were probably a lot of people here, for instance, using Google Docs the instant it became available and long before there was any client interest in using it for project purposes. Q: If employees are hesitant, do you have any tips to get them to use the systems regularly?
that, just once a month, take five minutes to do a little tip session or something. In five or 10 minutes, somebody can run through a couple of things that might make a huge difference for people in terms of time.
Q: Based on your own experience, would you recommend that other companies use several collaboration systems like you do, and if so, should you outline which channel is best for what?
So much of this depends on what the organization is trying to do. What is it that they need to be communicating and reporting on? If they can clarify those things up front, then that becomes the feature matrix against which they can start looking at various tools.
A: We create a lot of our own Writeboards for certain things and I will, for instance, post a tip about Basecamp if I come upon something. Ill put it out there and share it with people. If you have a way to create visible public forums that are easy to get to and everybody knows about, and they understand that its where people share tips, thats a good way to do it. Another thing is if you have department meetings or team meetings or something like A: The moral of the story is that theres no silver bullet at all. You know, everybody is after the holy grail, which is the one tool that does everything perfectly and it just doesnt exist. Weve had a very interesting experience ourselves. Theres actually another tool that I havent mentioned yet that weve implemented in the last six months here, which is a purely internal tool. Its a workflow system that ties together some things that we had not tied together in
this way before, within one piece of software. Its called Workamajig, an agency management tool that allows you to tie together time tracking with budget reporting, with resource allocation, with project schedules. Thats a very tall order, and its very powerful in the sense that it can give you insight into resource utilization in a way that usually is not possible. There is a very steep learning curve on that tool and its also a tool thats very focused on a certain kind of agency implementation and certain kinds of reporting. For us, the lesson [from using the tool] was that were almost more of a design and strategy consultancy, in a sense, than a traditional agency, and so we very quickly started to see these paradigms that this program is built on that really almost have more to do with another kind of structure than the structure that we have. So weve been doing a lot of customization, a lot of optimization around that. My point, getting back to the silver bullet thing, was that it looked like maybe heres this one thing that does 99% of what we need in a really good way, but then you get into it and you start to understand that whatever it is, youre going to have to understand how this thing was really intended to be used and what constraints that may or may not put on the way that your organization is built. So much of this depends on what the organization is trying to do. What is it that they need to be communicating and reporting on? If they can clarify those things up front,
24
knowledgebase
Do this as a committee effort. ... Theres nothing worse than shoving a tool down somebodys throat that they cant use or dont like ... and they never had any input in the process.
system along with the new system until people were more comfortable with it. I believe that the rollout programthe implementation planhas to be part of the initial planning that you do. Its not just the purchase and the investigation; the rollout is equally important. And then what we did right away was create a forum where people could immediately start posting feature requests, bugs, wish lists, questions that they needed answered, all that kind of stuff. That has continued to be pretty valuable.
Q: For companies that are just starting to look into project management software, how would you suggest that they begin? Should they talk to peers in the industry and see what works for them, and try to match up whos using what for similar goals? A: The rst thing is dening what it is youre trying to do, knowing what youre trying to get out of it and what sort of reporting youre interested in, and what you hope to connect to it so that you understand right from the start what youre trying to accomplish. From there, then you can move into the phase that you described, which is talking to peers, talking to people in your industry, doing independent research. When you get to the point of narrowing down to something that you think might be a candidate, then I would say thats when its really crucial to make sure that you have all of the demos that you need. And its not so much just having a company run their own demo for you; its being able to say to a vendor: Heres what were trying to do. Here are some samples of the way that we have been doing it in the past so that you can see what the output was and how it was structured. We hope that your product can do it even better. Show us how it would do it with our particular needs. Thats so important because anybody can show you a good canned demo, but unless its directly connected to the particular reporting that youre trying to do with the particular kinds of inputs that you have, its always a little bit blue-sky. m
then that becomes the feature matrix against which they can start looking at various tools.
Q: Whos responsible at your company for selecting these systems? It seems that in many instances, it starts with one project manager or one account director saying: We need to get a handle on our systems. Heres some good software. Ive done my research. Is that sufficient or should there be one person responsible for spearheading these collaboration efforts so that youre not just choosing software on an as-needed basis? A: What weve done in the past, and what I think probably works the best, is that you do this as a committee effort. Obviously, one person has to be leading the effort, but you have representation from each of the functional areas that will have to be using the tool. Theres nothing worse than shoving a tool down somebodys throat that they cant use or dont like, or it doesnt work for them, and they never had any input in the process or any visibility into the process. Q: What kind of ramp-up time should people expect? Is a learning curve common? A: Yeah, absolutely. For [Workamajig], we probably had about six months of research time that involved initial consultations and demos for various pieces of the organization here. And then on the implementation side, it was about a three-month rollout program, and we actually rolled it out in pieces and we double-tracked for about the last month or so with the most complex piece. We continued using the existing
25
MARKETING CONSULTANTS & CONSULTING SERVICES

THE 2012 MARKETING NEWS DIRECTORY OF MARKETING CONSULTANTS & CONSULTING SERVICES showcases suppliers to marketing professionals with purchasing power in this area. Each listing is a paid advertisement. The information contained in each listing was provided by the advertiser. If you would like additional information on any item listed, please contact the company directly. To receive information on listing your company in next years directory, please contact Sandra Wright, Marketing News, 311 S. Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606-2266, (312) 542-9063, email: swright@ama.org
AN ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE 03.31.12 ISSUE OF MARKETING NEWS. COPYRIGHT 2012 BY THE AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
2012 DIRECTORY OF
26
MARKETING CONSULTANTS
2012directory
SERVICES INDEX TO THE DIRECTORY OF
Marketing Consultants & Consulting Services

B2B
Copernicus Marketing Consulting & Research National Analysts Worldwide
INTERNATIONAL
I.S.I.S. Integrated Strategic Information Services, Inc.
PRICING
Customer Lifecycle National Analysts Worldwide
MARKETING PLANNING CONSUMER MARKETING

Copernicus Marketing Consulting & Research I.S.I.S. Integrated Strategic Information Services, Inc.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
MRSI (Marketing Research Services, Inc.) Research & Incite Consultants
NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT HEALTH CARE

I.S.I.S. Integrated Strategic Information Services, Inc. Decision Analyst, Inc. MRSI (Marketing Research Services, Inc.)
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
MRSI (Marketing Research Services, Inc.)
ONLINE RESEARCH/SURVEYS HIGH TECH

I.S.I.S. Integrated Strategic Information Services, Inc. MRSI (Marketing Research Services, Inc.)
RESEARCH BASED CONSULTANTS

Copernicus Marketing Consulting & Research Customer Lifecycle Decision Analyst, Inc. MRSI (Marketing Research Services, Inc.) National Analysts Worldwide Research & Incite Consultants
PHARMACEUTICAL
I.S.I.S. Integrated Strategic Information Services, Inc. National Analysts Worldwide
HISPANIC RESEARCH
LISTINGS FOR THE DIRECTORY OF

C
ShopperInsights Positioningandbrandstrategy Productandpricingstrategy Marketingplanning organization. Outcomes are rigorous and balanced customer-focused performance metrics, improved financial results, and a superior total customer experience. Integration of optimization, modeling, and simulationwithDecisionSystemsforadvertising testing, product testing, and new product concepttesting.Plus,Time-extendedonline qualitative and innovation services.
Copernicus Marketing Consulting & Research

200 Clarendon Street, 23rd Floor Boston, MA 02116 PHONE: (617) 449-4200 FAX: (617) 449-4197 WEB: www.copernicusmarketing.com EMAIL: ami.bowen@ copernicusmarketing.com CONTACT: Kevin J. Clancy, Ph. D., Chairman Peter C. Krieg, President and CEO ADDITIONAL COMPANY LOCATIONS: 230 East Avenue, 3rd Floor Norwalk, CT 06855-1923 PHONE: (203) 831-2370 FAX: (203) 831-2371 YEAR FOUNDED: 1993 Copernicus is a research-driven marketing consulting firm in the business of transforming companies. We use frontline, business-building ideas, and state-of-the-science research to develop, plan, and implement marketing strategies that change brand trajectories. At the core of our organization is the belief that marketing not finance or operations or IT is the center of the business solar system. It is the engine that drives business growth. You will find marketing strategy consulting services in our five practice areas that help you dramatically improve revenues, profits, and brand equity: Marketsegmentationandtargeting
Performanceevaluation
Customer Lifecycle
319 N. Weber Road, #360 Bolingbrook, IL 60490 PHONE: (630) 412-8989 EMAIL: kaferenz@customerlifecycle.us WEB: www.customerlifecycle.us CONTACT: Karin A. Ferenz Customer Lifecycle is a global research based consultancy that works with clients to get more value and better business results from research through improved coordination, deployment and integration of research findings and customer requirements into the day-to-day management and operations of the organization. We work with both B2B and B2C companies to plan and conduct primary research to accurately identify and measure requirements for customer acquisition, satisfaction and loyalty, share of wallet growth, and retention. We help companies avoid costly mistakes by focusing on thorough front-end planning, appropriate support for research execution, and in-depth deployment and action implementation at the back end. We help clients integrate customer requirements for performance into the processes and internal performance metrics of the
Decision Analyst, Inc.

604 Avenue H East Arlington, TX 76011 PHONE: (817) 640-6166 FAX: (817) 640-6567 EMAIL: jthomas@decisionanalyst.com WEB: www.decisionanalyst.com CONTACT: Jerry W. Thomas, President/CEO Decision Analyst is a global marketing research and analytical consulting firm, serving a number of Fortune 500 corporations, advertising agencies, and management consulting firms. Custom research and analytical consulting are Decision Analysts foundational competencies. Decision Analyst is a leader in advanced analytics, mathematical modeling, econometrics, and simulation. The firm is dedicated to helping its clients optimize marketing and operational systems. The firm melds qualitative research, survey research, marketing science, and operations research to solve the most complex marketing and business problems. Headquartered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Decision Analyst serves clients across North America, Europe and Asia. The firm is owned by its 175 employees.
I.S.I.S. Integrated Strategic Information Services, Inc.

201 S. Biscayne Blvd., Suite #2800 Miami, FL 33131 PHONE: (650) 298-8555 FAX: (650) 298-9555 EMAIL: marc@isisglobal.com WEB: www.isisglobal.com CONTACT: Marc Limacher, Managing Director ADDITIONAL COMPANY LOCATIONS: San Francisco, CA; Princeton, NJ; Lucerne, Switzerland. Since1992,expertsinstrategicandtactical competitive intelligence (CI) investigations, competitive messaging, pre-sales intelligence, tactical sell-against guides & battle card sales tools, win/loss assessments, benchmarking, rotating KOL panels, and systematic CI tracking programs, yielding immediate, measurable ROIs. Anticipate and plan for your current and emerging competitors next moves, shorten sales cycles and maximize competitive win ratios; understand how you are being viewed by customers, partners and competitors. We specialize in uncovering difficult-to-get intelligence on companies, industries, products, and ideas/concepts.
The Directory continues on the following page

27
2012directory
LISTINGS FOR THE DIRECTORY OF
MARKETING CONSULTANTS

M
MRSIs 3-step Hispanic research solution, ENFOQUE, can help you Discover your Hispanic audience, Explore how best to reach them and Grow your business among this group. Our clients trust us with their research needs because we know their industry, take the time to understand their business challenges, and our responsiveness makes the research process seamless. tactical importance, organizational sensitivity and marketing challenge and address a wide range of research issues including brand strategy, demand forecasting, market surveillance, segmentation, product development, pricing, positioning, customer insight and custom panels. National Analysts industry specialization enables us to offer counsel and provide implementation support on the basis of years of experience in key markets, including healthcare, financial services, communications/technology/ media, energy, residential design/technology, consumer products, and B2B. We utilize a full portfolio of qualitative and quantitative techniques and are known for leadership in modeling and methodological innovation. National Analysts Worldwide is a certified womens business enterprise. CONTACT: Mary Logan, Executive Vice President mary.logan@@riconsultants.com Research & Incite Consultants is a full-service research agency providing expertise in both Qualitative and Quantitative research. Partnering with clients, we provide value added consultancy and business advice to a diverse range of clients across North America and around the world. We offer expertise in Retail Shelf & Package Tests, Innovation, Market Analysis and Brand Health, all supported by proprietary analysis techniques to provide invaluable insights and actionable recommendations. Our approach to qualitative research is insight based and strategic minded. Our moderators are highly skilled and go beyond traditional methods to provide super-charged sessions. Ethnography, On-line Bulletin Boards and Insight Development are among our core strengths. We thrive on our clients business challenges and are proud of the relationships we've built with many of the world's best-known brands.

720 East Pete Rose Way Suite 200 Cincinnati, OH 45202 PHONE: 1-800-SAY-MRSI FAX: (513) 562-8819 EMAIL: info@mrsi.com WEB: www.mrsi.com CONTACT: Todd Earhart, President Since 1973, MRSI has helped clients solve business challenges with insightful, strategic marketing research designed for their specific needs. We specialize in providing product development, consumer insights and Hispanic research for clients across industries such as consumer products, financial services, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceutical, restaurant, and retail. Product development services include concept testing with ConSelect, product testing with ProSelect, package testing, pricing, product line optimization, and tracking research. Consumer insights services include SocialView social media research, ethnography, segmentation, message testing, iShelf online shelf testing, and customer satisfaction research.
National Analysts Worldwide

1835 Market Street 25TH Floor Philadelphia, PA 19103-2984 PHONE: (215) 496-6800 FAX: (215) 496-6802 EMAIL: Info@nationalanalysts.com WEB: www.nationalanalysts.com CONTACT: Susan Schwartz McDonald, CEO National Analysts Worldwide is a unique hybrid consultancy that integrates sophisticated market research methods with specialized industry expertise to guide important business decisions. We offer guidance in conceptualizing marketing problems, skill in devising research designs to solve them, and support in drawing strategic implications. Assignments focus on problems of
Research & Incite Consultants

789 Don Mills Road Suite 614 Toronto, ON M3C 1T5 PHONE: (416) 467-7101 FAX: (416) 467-7648 EMAIL: info@riconsultants.com WEB: www.riconsultants.com
All of the listings in this directory are paid ads. The information contained in each listing was provided by the advertiser. To list your company in next years Directory, please contact Sandra Wright, Marketing News, 311 S. Wacker Drive, Suite 5800, Chicago, Illinois 60606, (312) 542-9063, email: swright@ama.org.
28
recruitment classieds
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MARKETING RESEARCH
MARKET RESEARCH ANALYST:
MARKET RESEARCH ANALYST
Collect/analyze local & international data/statistics affecting food product demand & supply; forecast & track mktg/ sales trends; prep surveys on customers, employees, international suppliers; prep mgmt reports; Masters in Bus. Admin, Industrial Engg, Mktg or related eld, or B.S. in above elds plus 5 yrs of exp; 40 hrs/wk; we will pay prevailing wage. Send resume: La Cosecha, Inc d/b/a La Parrilla Mexican Restaurant, 103 Cobb Industrial Dr, Marietta, GA 30066.
(Long Island City, NY) Dsgn & conduct survey; monitor industry statistics; prep reports; dsgn mktg campaigns. Master's deg in Mktg, 1 yr related exp. Mail resumes & written sample of previous works to Symmetry Group Inc., 46-06 11th St., Long Island City, NY 11101. Attn: Jim Yang.
SALES / MARKETING
Hewlett-Packard Company is accepting resumes for
OPPORTUNITY CONSULTANT IN ALPHARETTA, GA. (Ref.
creative business opportunities that strengthen and protect business and nancial interests. Mail resumes with reference number to Ref. #ALPLNE11, Hewlett-Packard Company, 5400 Legacy Drive, MS H1-6F-61, Plano, TX 75024. Resume must include Ref. #, full name, email address & mailing address. No phone calls. Must be legally authorized to work in U.S. without sponsorship. EOE.
the results of your next qualitative research study. We create clips, highlight reels, and video reports bringing the voice of the customer to life. Travel anywhere. Call Helen @ (610) 489-0509.
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ADVERTISERS INDEX
Quick source for contacting the suppliers in the 03.31.12 issue of Marketing News .
Burke Institute ..........................................p. 2
Ph. 1-800-543-8635 URL: burkeinstitute.com
Honomichl Top 50 and Global Top 25 Marketing Research Firms Reports .......................................... p. 9
Ph. 312-542-9076 (Rich Ballschmiede, rballschmiede@ama.org) or 312-542-9103 (Catherine Eck, ceck@ama.org) URL: http://www.marketingpower.com/mediakit
Marketing News .................................... p. 28

Ph. 1-800-AMA-1150 URL: http://www.marketingpower.com
Charles Coolidge Parlin & 4 Under 40 Emerging Leaders Marketing Research Awards ..................p. 7
Ph. 1-800-AMA-1150 URL: http://www.marketingpower.com/research
Radius ...................................................... p. 32
Ph. 212-633-1100 URL: http://www.radius-global.com
29
howidoit
EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS
esullivan@ama.org
WE ARE GOING TO TAKE A DEEPER DIVE into the essence of

our brand and the emotional connection it has with our customer.
BACKGROUND
The weather is warming, youre spending more time out in your yard and you cant help but notice that your window screens need patching, your shingles need painting and your garden beds could use a perennial or two. Its BLAKE FOHLs job to get you to visit your local True Value store rather than its big-box brethrenand to ensure that the independent hardware store has the marketing tools that it needs to pull you in. Fohl was appointed vice president of marketing and chief customer officer at Chicago-based TRUE VALUE CO. in December, and is charged with leading a variety of marketing initiatives that serve both True Values network of independent retailers and the end customers. His switch-hitting marketing experience (both B-to-B and B-to-C) was honed as CMO of Hancock Fabrics and in a variety of marketing leadership roles over a 16-year career at Tractor Supply Co.
Youve worked for brands that have both consumer- and business-focused marketing needs. What have you learned from handling your bifurcated responsibilities about the distinctionsand similaritiesbetween the B-to-C and B-to-B marketing disciplines? For example, do you think its possible for a company that markets to both consumers and businesses to have one all-inclusive marketing strategy that targets one customer?
As a cooperative, we do not own any of the stores we serve. In fact, our retailers own us. Because of that, the marketing function serves up strategies, solutions and communications for both the stores and True Values end customer. We provide our stores with a suite of branded marketing tools where they have the flexibility to use them or to opt out at any time. These tools are, for the most part, customizable to the individual store and market. As partners with our retailers, we share the responsibility of driving awareness with all of our branded programs. National media is handled by our corporate marketing team and we also have many stores that run their own local television [ads]. As for an all-inclusive marketing strategy, yes, it is absolutely possible to have one strategy. Ultimately, if we create programs that drive customers into our stores, no matter who implements them, we are doing the right thing for our retailers.
a quick find of the right product, with an easy in-andout process, and youll find True Value is a local hardware destination. These independent hardware stores tend to weather the extremes of the economy better than the giants. We may not benefit as much in up economies; however, we dont suffer as much in the down periods. People still need to maintain and improve their homes, and make repairs.
Whats your marketing mix? Do you focus more heavily on any one tactic or channel? How does social media t in?
Cable television and print including magazines and Sunday supplements are the traditional media we have relied on. However, we are investing more heavily in digital. Digital marketing is crucial to our mix because of its ability to reach a younger DIY consumer/first-time homeowner. Display advertising, search engine marketing and optimization, mobile marketing and video are playing greater roles in communicating our message to them. We have been actively engaged in social media, primarily Facebook and Twitter, for the last several years. We provide a lot of content via our companys social media assets that dovetail nicely with local social media that many of our retailers are using.
You joined True Value in December. What goals have you set for yourself in your rst year?
First and foremost, my goal is to create marketing solutions that have three basic components for our retailers. They must be flexible, reliable and simple: flexible due to the vast differences in store sizes and assortments; reliable, in that True Value retailers can count on them working properly; and simple because our store owners are actually running the day-to-day operations of their store and dont have a lot of time to dedicate to marketing. Additionally, we are going to take a deeper dive into the essence of our brand and the emotional connection it has with our customer. With that knowledge, we can speak with a stronger voice throughout all channelsinternally and with both of our customers (the retailers and the end customers). m
Youre charged with stewarding a storied brand assigned to independent hardware stores in a category now dominated by corporate giants. Whats your value proposition? How do you get consumers to visit their nearest True Value stores over the competitors?
The people who own and operate True Value stores are more connected to their communities. Owners live in these towns and raise their families there. Many are family-run stores. Because of that, True Value offers a more personalized shopping experience with a high level of service and knowledge. Store owners and associates know many of their customers by name. Couple that with
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AMA Leadership Summit 2012 Rosemont, Ill., April 27-29
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AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Project management tips and tricks

AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION

the buzz core concepts

12 Cause for Concern

16 Release Your Inner Scribe

31 AMA community meetup

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Ahead of the Curve

Elisabeth A. Sullivan esullivan@ama.org

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MARKETING NEWS | MARCH 31, 2012

MARCH 31, 2012 | MARKETING NEWS

BY CHRISTINE BIRKNER | STAFF WRITER

1. Determine the appropriate frequency.

2. Aim before you re.

3. Remember that content is king.

MARKETING NEWS | MARCH 31, 2012

BY CHRISTINE BIRKNER | STAFF WRITER

MARKETING NEWS | MARCH 31, 2012

BE PART OF THE WHO'S WHO IN MARKETING RESEARCH...

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The Curse of Success

2. Centralize all or some resource

3. Create a culture supported by measures

MARKETING NEWS | MARCH 31, 2012

Living in Facebooks Bizarro World

1. Focus carefully on your objectives.

2. Create a brand page that gives fans

3. Use the full toolkit that Facebook

MARCH 31, 2012 | MARKETING NEWS

BY CHRISTINE BIRKNER | STAFF WRITER

MARKETING NEWS | MARCH 31, 2012

people live in areas with inadequate water supplies.

Unlike many other natural resources, water has no substitute.

DISTILLING THE MESSAGE

MARCH 31, 2012 | MARKETING NEWS

By 2025, two-thirds of the world

FROM A DRIP TO A DELUGE

MARKETING NEWS | MARCH 31, 2012

MARCH 31, 2012 | MARKETING NEWS

Content marketing is one of the it terms of 2012and with good reason

MARKETING NEWS | MARCH 31, 2012

Q: Is that why you recommend starting with a blog post?

Q: How do you do that? Are you tapping into your customer

Q: InkHouse creates what you call social contentor content

A: It can be for some of them. Having a point of view is so personal and so

MARCH 31, 2012 | MARKETING NEWS

MARKETING NEWS | MARCH 31, 2012

Q: A lot of companies are just getting into content marketing,

Q: So thats the crux. A lot of B-to-B companies are struggling

Q: Who are they hoping to reach through a channel like

A: I think that theyre thinking of it from a social responsibility standpoint