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Interview with Daniele Fiandaca, Cheil UK at 32nd National Marketing Conference 2011

Niamh Walsh - noemail@mii.ie — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:00:00 GMT

Daniele Fiandaca spoke at the 32nd National Marketing Conference on 9 November 2011 in the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin on the topic "Communication is no longer linear." You can view a video interview with Daniele taken on the day below. Conference delegates can access a full video of Daniele's presentation by Logging In

Daniele Fiandaca is the founder of Digital Fauna. Previously he ran the global digital communications agency Profero for over 10 years, building it from 20 to over 250 people globally, with a revenue of €23m and clients such as 3M, Apple, ASICS, Channel 4, IKEA, Johnson&Johnson, Lufthansa, MINI and Pepsico. He headed up Profero’s global social media offering, The Hive, ensuring that the agency was rewired for the future. He is now Head of Innovation at Cheil UK.

14-Nov-11 8:00 AM

Video Interview with Caroline Taylor, IBM at the National Marketing Conference 2011

Niamh Walsh - noemail@mii.ie — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:00:00 GMT

View our video interview with Caroline Taylor, Vice President Marketing, Communications and Citizenship with IBM.

Caroline spoke at the 32^nd National Marketing Conference, which took place on Wednesday 9 November with over 200 delegates gathering at The Four Seasons in Dublin. "Differentiation for Growth" was the theme of the conference and the day featured a wide range of speakers discussing how marketers can devise strategies to assure growth in the current economic climate.

Global CMO Study

You can download IBM's CMO Study referenced in Caroline Taylor's presentation:
From Stretched to Strengthened - Insights from The Global CMO Study

11-Nov-11 10:00 AM

Dublin - Marketing @ Night - The Shift of Consumer’s Consumption of Media to Digital Media

Cecilia McLernon - noemail@mii.ie — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Susan Daly explained why TheJournal.ie was founded as a response to how a new generation are increasingly accessing news online and tailoring their news consumption to their own tastes and interests. TheJournal.ie encourages interactivity with its users and encourages feedback on the news - but also on what constitutes news for this audience - while simultaneously imposing a credible journalistic framework on such contributions. (Its motto is 'Read, share and shape the news'.)

Susan explained the implications of digital media on advertising, brands and traditional marketing practices - and how this new stage in news consumption demands new ideas and creativity from marketers.

Susan is editor of the online-only Irish news publication TheJournal.ie. She has worked in national media for 14 years, was previously day news editor for The Irish Daily Star and news feature writer for the Irish Independent, and frequently guests on current affairs programmes on TV3, RTE1, TodayFM, RTE Radio1 and Newstalk.

TheJournal.ie has become one of the leading news publications in the Irish social media space in the 12 months since going live, attracting 85,000+ followers on Facebook and 20,000+ on Twitter. Over 65,000 smartphone users have downloaded its news app and the website received 720,000 unique users last month.

21-Oct-11 11:00 AM

Marketing to the Baby Boom

Jenny Bishop - noemail@mii.ie — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 08:00:00 GMT

At the latest in the Marketing breakfast series, ‘Marketing to the baby boom’, with Gerard O’Neill, Amárach and Rose Kervick, Eumom, there were three main themes which dominated following a survey conducted by Amárach Research of Eumom members:

· The importance of the sense of community , belonging and trust among members

· Demographics are crucial for marketers and the current baby boom is a key opportunity for brands and marketers alike – if you want to follow the money, demography is destiny

· Mums are key decision makers in household purchases and have a massive sway over consumer spending which translates into billions of euro every year

The importance of the sense of community, belonging and trust among members

Eumom has over 106,000 active members, and they sign up approximately 3000 new members every month. Their members come to the community for new information, support, peer and professional advice and to chat to each other about their experiences as new mothers. Amárach Research conducted the survey on behalf of Eumom and one of the things that struck Amárach was the extraordinary speed of response to the survey – there were 3,400 respondents in total and they had approximately 1000 responses by the end of the first day. This is a very rapid response rate in the online world and shows the level of engagement of mothers with Eumom and the feeling of community and sense of belonging they have.

The fantastic response to the survey indicates a strong affinity to Eumom and the profile of respondents is very representative of the population, age, social class, region, average household income is approximately €47,000; 45% of mums are employed, so the research is mostly based on two income households. 3 in 10 are expecting mums. The Eumom profile gives good depth and breadth to its brand and to marketers trying to understand the ‘mum’ segment in the marketplace.

The issue of trust between consumers and brands is hugely important – gaining, keeping or restoring trust is a really important driver for marketing strategy. The high levels of trust that mothers have with content-based websites such as Eumom is apparent but it’s not just trust that is important, it’s also advice and knowledge sharing. This generation of Mums is the most connected, the most IT literate of any generation and online sites provide a hugely important platform not only for engaging with one another, but also for engaging with brands.

Demographics are crucial for marketers and the current baby boom is a key opportunity for brands and marketers alike

We are one of the very few countries experiencing a growth in population and it’s intriguing to see something of an echo boom – we had a baby boom in the 70’s and early 80’s (David McWilliams coined the phrase ‘pope’s children’)– 30 years later the pope’s children are now having their own children and they are part of the changing landscape for marketers and society. There is a shift in the average age of marriage and the age of the first child being born to 30 and 31. This has a parallel in the surge in the population of under 5’s. If you want to follow the money, demography is destiny, that’s what the research is telling us.

The presentation points to one of the most important demographics today, the few areas that are growing significantly look set to continue - this is an increasingly important group in terms of their power and specifically their spending power.

Mums are key decision makers in household purchases and have a massive sway over consumer spending which translates into billions of euro every year

One thing that struck Amárach was how involved Mums are in consumer decisions for the whole household. The pressures they are facing with income are also apparent, with a high percentage of them experiencing a decrease in income coupled with the increase in the cost of living, which is obviously putting pressure on grocery shopping. Mums are doing more and more savvy things: 97% of them are in loyalty schemes, many of them are using coupons and vouchers to provide them with value and to make their money go further and this figure has even increased on last year.

When you look at sources of influence on Mums decision making, things like word of mouth come through as very crucial plus advice from their own mothers, other Mums and friends. Mums have such important influence over decisions for their families and the challenge for marketers is to get inside that circle of trust through appropriate channels. The rewards of engaging with Irish Mums today are very significant in terms of market share, and share of wallet. Brands can also try to build a legacy that’s multi-generational and you can see it pass on to the next generation, for example Sudocrem, there is a great sense of loyalty and affection for the product. Brand loyalty is very strong with this category, for example baby food. One or two brands dominate in this sector and it shows that loyalty and brand affinity can’t be taken for granted. However the level of switching is increasing right across the marketing landscape – consumers are less loyal even when making decisions for their babies and are actively looking for switching opportunities, taking value for money into consideration. For products such as baby food, there are other considerations such as quality and nutritional content. This is a highly informed market segment, more empowered and more knowledgeable than other generations.

Watch a video of the breakfast presentation

Download the presentation slides

Click here to read more about upcoming events

28-Sep-11 8:00 AM

Trademark & Brand Protection

Judy Goldman - noemail@mii.ie — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:00:00 GMT

It is important that every company ensure its trade marks and brands are adequately protected. Simply put, a company’s trade marks are the marks used by the company including names and logos while the brand includes the goodwill and reputation of the company and its products.

A company should:

Register its trade marks;
Ensure its employees’ proper use and display of company trade marks on the web;
Police its copyright and the use of its copyright by third parties; and
Police against and prevent any impersonator’s use of the company trade marks and brands and its customers’ account names and screen identities.

Companies should have policies in place which set out guidelines and restrictions for use of its trade marks by its employees on the internet. They must also ensure that their employees are truthful about what the company has to offer in any postings they may make, as the company may be held liable for misleading commercial practices and such a finding will likely injure the company’s brand. Section 42 of the Consumer Protection Act 2007 (“the CPA”) provides that a trader shall not engage in a misleading commercial practice.

Pursuant to section 43 of the CPA, a commercial practice is misleading if it provides false information which would be likely to cause the average consumer to make a transactional decision that the average consumer would not otherwise make, or if it would be likely to cause the average consumer to be deceived or misled and to make a transactional decision that the average consumer would not otherwise make. The information provided through the commercial practice in question may relate to any number of matters including:

the existence or nature of a product;
the main characteristics of a product such as its geographical origin or its availability at a particular time or place or at a particular price or its benefits or fitness for purpose;
the price of the product, the manner in which that price is calculated or the existence or nature of a specific price advantage;
the existence, extent or nature of any approval or sponsorship (direct or indirect) of the product by others; and
the legal rights of a consumer (whether contractual or otherwise) or matters respecting when, how or in what circumstances those rights may be exercised.

A company should also have guidelines in place for use of its trade marks by third parties to whom it has granted a licence to use its trade marks. For example, if a company enters a sponsorship agreement with an organisation, it may wish to ensure there is language in the sponsorship agreement which requires the organisation to comply with the company guidelines for use of its trade marks. Likewise, an organisation which is providing a sponsor company with a licence to use its trade mark will wish to ensure something similar.

Third parties who are not licenced to use a trade mark should be prevented from so doing. This is not an easy task and, while some companies have personnel who are employed to search the internet for references to the company, this is not feasible for every company. There are sites which help police use of trade marks and other intellectual property (such as www.knowem.com, ww.socialmention.com, usernamecheck.com and checkusernames.com). Please note that neither Beauchamps nor the author have any direct experience with these individual websites and suggest you consider carefully what site might be best suited for your own needs.

If a company realises that someone is illegally using its trade marks, it should act quickly to continue to protect its intellectual property rights. The company’s legal advisor should be contacted as soon as practicable. Some social media platforms have terms of service which may assist in enforcing the takedown of references to the company’s brand if its brand is being used illegally.

A company’s brand must be protected as well. A company should ensure that online content is reviewed for untrue and/or defamatory comments or inappropriate language which might harm the brand. Too many negative comments about a business may hurt a business. If there are more negative comments than would be considered normal about a company or a company’s product on one or more websites, the company may wish to investigate the cause and try to fix matters. However, there must be honesty. There is a trust between business and consumer where the business acts with integrity. Therefore, simply deleting all negative comments may backfire. It may also open the company up to claims of deceptive trade practices.

It is also advisable to review content on other websites for favourable and unfavourable references. It is a worthwhile endeavour to see how a company’s brand is being discussed on other sites so a representative of the company can respond if need be as well as avoid misrepresentations by third parties. To assist with this there are programs such as Google Alerts or Twitter search (which are free and easy to set up but somewhat onerous to monitor) or pay services which will monitor sites and collate all the information.

An example of how a company can be hurt, quickly, by negative comments online occurred recently to a Canadian magazine. An article about the history of apple pie had been written for a publication then republished online by a Canadian cooking magazine without permission. The author was credited for her work but she never consented to nor was she compensated for the use of the article. The magazine’s editor replied to her query about the use of the article by saying that the internet is “public domain”. Public opinion was almost completely on the author’s side. Publishing on the internet is not enough to put something in the public domain.

Online reaction to the allegation of copyright infringement was swift and the magazine’s Facebook page was overrun with negative comments. Allegedly, the magazine’s Facebook page was hacked and fake Facebook and Twitter accounts were created to spread word of the alleged infringement. Facebook users published links to other articles the magazine had allegedly copied and a list of the magazine’s advertisers was posted online with contact information. These advertisers were then targeted to the extent that the magazine issued a plea that users stop bombarding the advertisers with distasteful messages. If the magazine editors at the very least had been aware of the storm brewing online they may have been able to react more quickly, avoiding a lot of embarrassment as well as potentially alienating their advertisers. Of course, a better understanding of what is meant by “public domain” would have avoided the entire mess.

Judy Goldman advises on sponsorship opportunities and agreements, data protection, online marketing, ambush marketing, licence agreements, and legal guidelines to sales and marketing.

Beauchamps Solicitors j.goldman@beauchamps.ie +353 1 418 0600

This article is not to be regarded as legal advice on any particular matter.

22-Aug-11 10:00 AM

Behaviour Change & Effective Behavioural Change Programmes

Jeff French - noemail@mii.ie — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Putting theory into practice - What we know about behaviour change 24 lessons from the evidence:

Recent findings from a variety of fields of study have all helped to expand and enhance our understanding of how and why people behave as they do. This learning gives us a powerful set of principles, which can be used to help design more effective social change interventions. In particular, there is a much wider appreciation now that while behaviour can be ‘rational’ and the result of conscious consideration, in practice many decisions flow from emotional engagement, social influence and environmental prompts.

What we now know is that many of our choices and the decisions we make that influence our behaviour are not the result of active decision-making, rather, as discussed above and illustrated in the Value/ Cost Matrix Model, are unconscious and automatic. These ‘decisions’ are influenced by our social and emotional contexts and by factors such as timing, and our physiological state.

The following set of 24 principles summarises much of what we currently know about influencing behaviour drawn from fields of study that include but are not limited to management, psychology, policy development, economics, design, sociology, biology and communication studies.

Change in behaviour is usually a process not an event, and often entails several attempts before success. When delivering intervention programmes there is a need to be persistent, sustain interventions over time and offer multiple paths to success.
A desire or at least an acceptance for change must be present in the target audience: Some people will want to change their behaviour; others will need to be persuaded to consider a change.
People need to feel involved and engaged. Participatory involvement often creates bigger behavioural change effects. Wherever possible, involve, consult and engage people in both designing and delivering interventions.
Active consideration often leads to more permanent change. If people have a chance to explore and consider issues, this soften helps them both reconsider attitudes and beliefs that help them change their behaviour or maintain a positive behaviour.
People can be taught critical thinking skills that can help them take more control over their behaviour and resist media, social and environmental influences on their behaviour.
People are often motivated to do the ‘right thing’ for the community as well as themselves and their families. Interventions that appeal to peoples sense of community togetherness and that the desired behaviour is a norm in the community and one that is valued by others tend to be more successful.
Social relationships, approval and social support have a strong and persistent influence on behaviour. Working with and through key influencers improves the impact of behaviour change programmes. Use the power of group norms and behaviour to inform and engage people in change, let them know that others are changing and use the power of group action.
People can be ‘locked into’ patterns of behaviour and need practical help to help them break or unfreeze current behaviour. Programmes that provide practical support to change are easy to access and require small steps tend to be more effective.
Beliefs and values influence how people behave. Programmes should start by understanding target audience beliefs and attitudes and use these to inform the development of behaviour change services and products.
Behavioural experience can influence beliefs and values. Programmes that move people to behaviour as quickly as possible i.e. give them a chance to try the thing that is being promoted work best. It is not always necessary to rely on shifting attitude first. Often behaving differently often leads to a shift in attitude.
Change is more likely if an undesired behaviour is not part of an individual’s coping strategy. Avoid ‘telling people off’ for ‘bad’ behaviour if they are using it to cope with life. Demonstrates an understanding of the reasons for their behaviour and offer realistic and attractive alternatives that give practical support to change.
People’s perception of their own ability to change can either enhance or detract from attempts to change. Develop services and support that will build people’s confidence knowledge and skills.
People’s perception of their vulnerability to a risk and its severity is key to understanding behaviour and developing effective interventions. Focus on understanding people’s perceptions and how they view the risks associated with the behaviour. Also focus interventions on people’s views and frame risks in ways that they can understand and are meaningful to them.
People’s perceptions of the effectiveness of the recommended behavioural change are key factors affecting decisions to act. This factor means that we need to set out in terms that people value the benefits and impact of the change that is being promoted.
People influence and are influenced by their physical, social and economic environments. There is a limit to a person’s capacity to change if the environment militates against the desired change. Deliver programmes that tackle the underlying environmental, social and economic barriers to change as well as personal factors.
People are loss averse. They will put more effort into retaining what they have than acquiring new assets or benefits. Stress potential losses associated with the behaviour as well as the positive gains that can be accrued from change.
People often use mental short cuts and trial-and-error approaches to make decisions, rather than ‘rational’ decision making. An understanding these short cuts or heuristics should be used to develop interventions and develop new ‘scripts’ associated with the behaviour you are trying to influence.
The more beneficial or rewarding an experience, the more likely it is to be repeated. Maintaining positive behaviour can be assisted by reinforcement. Behavioural interventions should seek to reward desired behaviours and when appropriate penalise inappropriate behaviour. Interventions should also seek to support positive behaviour by maintaining a relationship with people which affirms their new behaviour and encourages them to build on it.
Many people are often more concerned with short-term gains and costs, and tend to place less value on rewards or costs that might happen in the future. Programmes should emphasise short-term as well as long-term benefits and seek to reduce short-term costs.
People will usually change behaviour if they value what is being offered or in the case of a negative penalty that the penalty has meaning and real consequences for them. Offers and penalties need to be presented in a way that people find meaningful and understandable.
Change is more likely, if the actions that have to be taken are easy specific, simple and clear. Making the first step to change very easy also helps engage people in the start of a change process. Keep interventions specific and promote them in a way that the target audience views as relevant and appealing.
People can be helped to change by designing services and environments in such a way that encourage people to act that does not involve complex choice decisions. Design services, environments that encourage ‘mindless choosing’ i.e. by removing the need for complex choices, for example making only low or nonalcoholic drinks available at social functions will encourage less people to get drunk.
Many people are bad at computation and risk assessment. Many of us do not understand numbers, risk ratios or odds. Test the use and understanding of numerical and risk based messages before using them. Convey risks and factual numeric information in ways that the target audience can understand and find compelling, for example the number of Olympic sized swimming pools full of water that can be saved by fitting a low volume flush toilet.
Communications and media including social media can have a powerful effect on people’s attitudes, beliefs and consequently behaviour. However this effect is not mainly concerned with information transmission. The real impact of mass and social media on people is often less. Media can build up impressions of relationships between issues, set the agenda for public debate and create emotional responses as well as transmit information.

What we know about developing effective and efficient intervention processes

Quality Assuring Social Marketing Planning

It is not possible to develop, an exact formula that can be universally applied for delivering population-focused behaviour programmes that will result in success every time. However there is an emerging set of principles that can aid us in the development and application of interventions (French et al, 2009; Klassen, 2010; Suter, 2009). These features are summarised in the following quality assurance list that can be used to test the utility and strength of social marketing plans.

Social Marketing Quality Assurance Planning Checklist

Clear aims and measurable behavioural objectives should be set out in the programme plan together with the target audience(s) and segments that will be the focus of the intervention should be explicit.
Programmes should set out how funding and other resources will be applied and over what time period. A clear expected return on investment case should be set out to justify the level of planned investment.
The programme should be endorsed by policy makers, commissioners and managers, deliverers of the programme. The programme plan should set out the political, policy, managerial and institutional commitment to the programme.
The programme team should capture what evidence about effective practice from reviews and case studies, observational data and target audience psychographic data is being used to formulae insight and interventions.
The programme plan should set out a clear rationale for the programme and why particular interventions have been selected. The programme plan should also indicates the theoretical perspectives and models that have been used to inform planning that is congruent with the form, focus and context of the intervention.
The programme plan should demonstrate that target group(s), stakeholders and partners have been involved in needs assessment, target setting, delivery and evaluation.
The programme plan should set out how prototype interventions or pilots will be tested and used to develop full-scale programmes.
The plan should sets out how the programme will be funded to the level required to achieve impact and how it will be sustained over the recommended time scale for delivery. Plans should also set out key milestones, in developing and delivering the programme. These milestones should cover process, impact and outcome milestones.
Programme plans should set out how coalitions, stakeholders, partners and interest groups will be engaged over the lifetime of the intervention. The plan should also sets out the mechanism for coordinated action between international, national regional and local delivery, and how decision making, governance and coordination of the programme will operate.
Key barriers and enabling factors and other risks should be identified in the programme plan together with what actions will be taken to address these factors.
Evaluation, performance management, learning and feedback mechanisms are clear in the programme plan. Evaluation should encompass short-term impact measures for tracking purposes, process measures of efficiency and outcome evaluation related to the specific objectives of the programme.
All programme plans should be recorded and published, the plan should be based on a proven planning template such as TPP.
These characteristics can be used as a checklist to test the likely impact of social marketing interventions and programmes, and as a checklist when developing a social marketing plan.

Best Practice Behavioural Change Planning Checklist

Answer each of the following questions with Yes, No or Unsure to complete your checklist.

Is there a written social marketing plan and is it based on a recognised planning template?
Are clear aims and measurable behavioural objectives set out?
Are target audience(s) and segments are explicit in the plan?
Is there evidence that target group(s) are or will be involved in needs assessment, target setting, delivery and evaluation?
Does the plan sets out how prototype interventions or pilots will be tested and used to develop full scale programmes?
Does the plan sets out a clear rationale for the programme and why the particular interventions have been selected?
Does the plan sets out how the programme will be funded to the level required to achieve impact and how it will be sustained over the recommended time scale for delivery?
Does the plan set out how coalitions with other stakeholders, partners and interest groups will be developed and coordinated?
Does the plan set out the mechanisms for coordination, decision making, and governance?
Does the plan have political, policy, managerial and institutional commitment?
Are barriers and enabling factors and other risks identified in the plan together with what actions will be taken to address these factors?
Does the plan capture what evidence and data is being used to formulae interventions?
Does the plan indicates what theoretical perspectives have been used to inform it?
Does the plan set out how funding and other resources will be applied and clear expected return on investment?
Are key milestones for development delivery and evaluation set out?
Are evaluation, performance management, learning and feedback mechanisms clearly set out ?

Professor Jeff French is the CEO of Strategic Social Marketing and a recognised global leader in the application of behaviour change and social marketing. Jeff was the organiser of the World Non-Profit & Social Marketing Conference which took place in Dublin on 11 and 12 April 2011.

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13-Apr-11 5:00 AM

Marketing Accountability and the New CMO

Simon Rogals - noemail@mii.ie — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:00:00 GMT

The role of the B2B marketing function can be precarious. It can be undervalued as firms struggle to make the link between marketing activities and bottom-line improvement. Linking marketing activity to bottom line results has always been a vexing issue for B2B marketers and for other company executives. Measuring the return on investment from marketing spend on tradeshows, adverts in trade magazines, brochures and breakfast seminars is acknowledged as being problematic. As a result, marketing is often viewed as a function somewhat isolated from sales and sales performance and, as such, lacking in credibility.

"Marketing departments are finding themselves under increasing pressure to justify their spending, prove the effects of their marketing campaigns, and demonstrate program success... or risk losing their budgets.” - Forbes and MarketShare Partners

In recessionary times, marketing can face the deepest cuts. In fact many Fortune 1,000 companies don't even have a CMO role. A 2009 Ernst & Young survey noted that just 13% to 15% of Fortune 1,000 companies employed some sort of marketing position with a chief or senior-executive-level title such as chief marketing officer or chief revenue officer. If you’re a CMO the question is how do you change this. How do you get the rest of the executive team to take marketing seriously? The answer lies in using digital techniques to turn marketing into an accountable function that makes a C-Level contribution to your company’s business growth.

First principles…

CMOs and their marketing teams firstly need to recognise that more than 80% of B2B buyers find their suppliers (mostly by beginning a search on the internet) rather than a supplier finding the buyer. This is a fundamental shift in thinking. The buying process is more complex, especially for high-consideration B2B technology sales. Buyers will investigate solutions on their terms. Your job as a marketer is to reach those buyers with the right content at each step in their buying cycle. This is called content marketing: providing content in the right form for your buyers when and where they want to consume it. To do this successfully, you must first get a deeper understanding of your buyers and their buying process so you can understand what content to produce. Once you've done this, you need to optimise your site to make sure you can be found and use content to raise awareness amongst your buyers. You then need to use selected content to drive buyers to your website and capture their details in return for interesting content. This gives you permission to continue to nurture them until they are ready to make a purchase decision.

With digital marketing, you can track and record every interaction and response from buyers, which means you can quantify the results of your marketing spend and achieve accountability. The tools used in digital demand generation track and record every single interaction, click, open, and contact along the way showing exactly the result of any activity and the contribution to sales.

It is worth noting that there is some sticky ground here. Marketers should not get drawn into an over-reliance on reporting on email opens, page visits, Facebook likes, Twitter followers and so on. They’re useful indicators but what the rest of the organisation cares about are the number of sales ready-leads generated as a result and the cost of generating each lead. That’s the bottom line for marketing effectiveness. All those other indicators let marketing measure their own effectiveness in the process they implement to ultimately generate a lead and they can also help to measure awareness. Think of it this way: reporting how many lines of code the development team has written today is not very exciting for the sales director, but the availability of a new product is.

There’s no need to limit this thinking to the virtual world either. The framework you build for digital marketing should include capturing and nurturing leads from all sources including things like tradeshows, telephone enquiries, and sales calls. Think of digital demand generation as a best practice toolset for the marketing function as a whole not as a separate foray into the world of virtual lead generation.

When implemented together, and viewed as a whole, these techniques will show you exactly what return they produce. If your email campaign and pay-per-click results are added to your website monitoring and nurturing tools and these are all linked to a lead tracking system, you can see each customer’s journey across all your marketing channels. You can see what interaction helped to move the enquiry into a lead, the lead into a prospect, and the prospect in to a sale. As a result you can clearly measure how your spend on this new approach results in buyer awareness, sales-ready opportunities and contribution to revenue.

Your sales funnel becomes much more transparent and granular through this approach. You can identify what tactics are producing the best return, and you can gauge the return. You can also be more precise about the status of prospects in the sales funnel and the likelihood and timelines for conversion to a sale.

The Promise of Marketing Accountability

Fulfilling the promise of marketing accountability will benefit your company in the following ways:

It gives you visibility on future income by showing an accountable pipeline from the very early stages
It helps you form a more confident view of which leads will result in sales.
It lets you work out what spend is required at the top of the sales funnel to keep up or improve the numbers at the bottom of the funnel
It lets you measure the cost of generating leads
It allows you to invest with clarity in marketing, knowing what the return will be on incremental investments.

The whole picture in focus – from lead to sale

If you have the right process in place, you’ll be able to see what leads are being generated at what cost and from what sources. You can adjust your spend to generate more leads from existing sources, and quickly and cheaply test out new tactics to generate new leads. You can actively nurture each lead with a defined programme of interactions to take them to the point of being ‘sales ready’.

To facilitate better integration of sales and marketing functions there should be an agreed definition of a qualified lead. Marketing efforts can then clearly focus on producing more and more leads that are defined as ready for sales. Leads can be passed back if no longer sales-ready. Marketing can demonstrably show its contribution to the top of the sales funnel. And that means better sales results not to mention a more harmonious existence.

With the right processes in place, you can show how many leads are generated and how many of them turn into sales-ready leads. You can show how long the process takes and how much it costs. And, armed with this information, you can plan with confidence how to increase these numbers to deliver more sales-ready leads. The nebulous activity at the top of the sales funnel is now thrown into sharp relief. The true value of all your marketing activity can be revealed. And if the CMO can show the number of leads being generated by the marketing team and the cost of each lead, it makes sense that this should be reported at Board Level by the CMO just like the Sales Director’s sales funnel and the CFO’s financial statements.

Marketing should never be completely numerically driven. Company awareness, goodwill, and light-touch activities are much more difficult to measure but add significantly in terms of value. But the closer it’s aligned to it’s core activity of producing sales leads, and setting itself up to track and measure this activity, the more license it will have to perform these softer activities. The CMO will hold more respect and gravitas when providing input to product decisions, overall strategic direction, and will gain more influence within the organisation. In making a contribution to your company’s’ bottom-line, and for the CMO’s career prospects, marketing must show a strong return on investment.

It’s time for CMOs to stop marketing from being judged on superficial design activity and isolated tasks like event management, and start thinking about how the function of marketing can be accountable for improving the company’s commercial performance.

Simon Rogals is a Director at Bayberry, an independent corporate advisory and management consulting firm. srogals@bayberryconsult.com www.bayberryconsult.com

5-Apr-11 10:00 AM

How Irish Marketers Use Digital

Aileen O'Toole - noemail@mii.ie — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Risks as well as opportunities exist in how social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube are used as marketing channels. This is one of the central findings from the 2011 Irish Digital Marketing Sentiment Survey, the most extensive of its kind undertaken among Irish marketers. It also reveals that marketing budgets continue to move online and that print advertising is losing out to advertising on a range of digital channels.

Conducted by AMAS in partnership with the Marketing Institute of Ireland (MII), over 400 Irish marketers participated and gave insights into how the internet is affecting them. This is the third such survey conducted by AMAS and the MII and attracted the largest response to date. The sample was drawn from across all sectors of the Irish economy and three out of five participants have budgetary responsibility for the marketing function within their businesses.

Attitudes to social media, both positive and negative, proved to be revealing. Social media is an established part of the marketing armoury and is used primarily for relationship building (84%), to create brand awareness (76%) and for listening to and monitoring online conversations about companies, brands and people (66%). Asked to consider the impact of social media, Irish marketers recognised benefits such as:

The ability to understand audiences better (79%)
Delivering cost savings to the business (46%)
Providing the opportunity to make valuable connections (68%)

There is an acknowledgement, though, that social media can have downsides such as:

Increasing a marketer’s workload (64%)
Concerns about damage to a company’s reputation (51%)
The challenges of keeping up to date with what is happening in social media (52%)
A fear of making mistakes on social media sites that cannot be corrected (39%)

Social media is regarded as highly cost-effective, as engagement through these channels does not necessarily mean an investment in a campaign budget. But it has yet to attract significant advertising revenues. In Ireland, as well as globally, social media sites are “under-monetised” – they are not turning the massive scale of their audiences into revenues on the same scale.

Rumours of the death of email are greatly exaggerated. For the third survey in succession, email is the most popular online marketing format and is used by over two-thirds of participants. This correlates with much anecdotal evidence from Irish eCommerce providers which report that conversions are highest, and costs are lowest, through email marketing campaigns.

Social networking sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, are the second most popular online marketing format at 55%. YouTube, despite its popularity, is still relatively underdeveloped in commercial terms – the entire video/audio online advertising format is used by only 24% of the survey’s sample.

Being found in the maze of online content is a critical requirement for Irish marketers.

Search engine optimisation – the process by which sites can maximise free or organic rankings – is the third most popular online marketing format (52%) with search engine marketing (most likely Google AdWords) being favoured by 36%.

Marketing budgets continue to migrate online. As the pie chart shows, a third of the respondents are likely to spend between
1-10% of their budgets online, the largest single category of spend. Cumulatively, more than a third of the respondents say they are spending over 21% of their budgets on digital marketing.

Why the shift from traditional to digital channels? The ability to engage with customers (75%), optimising reach for campaigns (62%) and value for money (61%) are the most common reasons given. Digital’s gain is at the expense of print. Some 43% of the sample said that they have moved their marketing spend away from newspapers, while 41% have moved
it away from direct mail. TV, radio, cinema and outdoor have proved to be more resilient

Source: 2011 Irish Online Marketing Sentiment Survey, Marketing Institute of Ireland/AMAS

28-Feb-11 5:00 AM

Dublin - Marketing Breakfast - Is social media overrated? & other digital advertising questions you are too afraid to ask.

Cecilia McLernon - noemail@mii.ie — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Mark Congiusta spoke at the Marketing breakfast on Wednesday 26 January 2011 on the topic "Is social media overrated? and other digital advertising questions you are too afraid to ask".

Here's what most marketers know about digital advertising -whatever their partner agencies tell them. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you implicitly trust your agencies to know what they are talking about. And simply because you pay someone for their expertise doesn't mean that you shouldn't arm yourself with a little knowledge as well. The breakneck pace with which the digital ad world moves makes it a full time job just keeping up with the latest trends, never mind trying to figure out how they fit into your overall marketing strategy. In this podcast Mark answers the most frequently asked questions he gets in his role as someone who's job description dictates that he know about these things.

Mark Congiusta has spent the last three years at Irish International as an all around digital workhorse, collaborating with brilliant people and helping great brands to understand the emerging opportunities that digital advertising offers them and their customers.

Recorded live on the morning, approx. running time 20 minutes - Download Podcast

View Photos from the morning

Simon O'Neill speaks to Mark Congiusta, digital marketing expert, about the development of social media as a digital marketing tool and whether its relevance has been exaggerated. V-Stream interview recorded live on the morning View Interview

8-Feb-11 6:00 AM

SMS Marketing for SMEs - An Introduction to Cost Effective SMS Marketing

Margaret Walsh - noemail@mii.ie — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:00:00 GMT

In today’s economic environment marketers are seeking more cost effective and timely methods to communicate - this is where mobile marketing comes into its own. With many options available including Mobile App and Mobile Websites, the SMS Text message remains the original and most popular option, in particular for cost considerations and quick turnaround.

SMS Text Messages can be used to simply inform, update, educate or assist in further developing your customer relationship. As a text message is a direct communication into the hands of your client or prospect, it is a very powerful tool that can get results quickly for your business or organisation.

The following are some important areas to consider when planning a SMS campaign:

Data Protection

It is important to ensure that you are fully compliant with the requirements of the Data Protection Office. Many people find this a difficult area to tackle, however it need not be if you follow some simple rules.

The most important rules are:

Ensure all numbers you wish to text have opted in to receive communications from you and keep a record of this opt-in.
Opted in permission is valid for 12 months, or 12 months from your last communication.
Ensure that each marketing SMS message includes a low cost option for the recipient to STOP receiving messages from you. It is then important to ensure you do remove this number from your list before your next SMS campaign.
It is important to remember that you are the data controller and the provider is the data processor and as a controller it is important that you keep your data current and up to date on your own records.

If in doubt, my advice is to contact the commissioner’s office directly, they are very helpful and can point you in the right direction. Also the web site does have a lot of useful resources. For more information visit www.dataprotection.ie

How does it work?

It is extremely easy to set up and run a SMS campaign no matter what the size of your organisation. Firstly, it is important to have a list of opted in numbers, here are a few ideas to get you started:

Capture numbers in store at Point of Sale or competitions - clearly recording an Opt-in.
Current customer details, again gathering an Opt-In.
Use your web site - many businesses capture email addresses for special offers and updates but they fail to collect mobile numbers.
Run an inbound competition or information advert where you invite the public to text a keyword to a short code. You must state clearly in the terms and conditions the Opt-In.
Collect data at exhibitions and conferences - clearly recording an Opt-in.
Invite people to participate in Loyalty or Reward SMS schemes to add value to your client relationship.
Simply ask your clients would they like reminders, updates or product information by SMS.
Going forward on new business ensure to incorporate Opt in options for future use.

Many large organisations use SMS marketing for appointment reminders, booking confirmations, order confirmations, support updates, policy numbers, billing and staff communications to name but a few. There are a number of ways to connect and use SMS including a connection to an existing database so that SMS messages or campaigns can be easily automated. This is simply done by use of an API – which is an interface or plug in that allows the database to talk to the SMS Provider directly.

But what if you are a small business with no experience of SMS marketing? No matter what the size of your organisation, it is possible to tailor a text messaging campaign for your business. For smaller organisations, the SMS campaign can be simply letting your list know about an extra discount or upcoming sale, closing/opening hours due to a cold snap or to drive traffic during a quiet period. Your numbers might be simply saved in an excel file for this requirement and using an online SMS service, you can simply log on to a web account, buy credits, upload your excel file, write your text message and send. It is that simple!

Key Terms

Some terms to be aware of:

Origin Number - this is what appears when the recipient receives your messages. This can generally be alpha numeric. So you can place a number here or brand the message with your company name. Generally this is 16 characters long for a number and 11 characters long for text. Spaces will be removed also.
Standard text - a Text message is 160 characters long, some Unicode characters like {}/^€ can use 2 characters
Concatenation - quality providers will offer the ability to Concatenate. This simply means stringing messages together so they deliver as one. We allow you to string up to 3 standard messages together.
Quality and Economy providers - Cost on providers can vary, it is important to use quality providers as they will retry to send your messages for as long as the network allows, so you get a greater number of your messages delivered. Remember you pay to send the message so the more delivered the better value you get.
Delivery reporting - it is important your provider offers full reporting, as some messages will fail it is good to see which messages failed and why.

I hope this article gives you an insight into using SMS as a marketing tool, it really is a straightforward tool that every marketer should utilize or at least plan for. And it can be implemented even by small businesses at a moment's notice.

Margaret Walsh is the Sales & Marketing Manager for NeonSMS. margaret@neonsms.ie www.neonsms.ie

24-Jan-11 9:00 AM

Salary Survey 2012

Eileen Moloney - noemail@mii.ie — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:00:00 GMT

The Brightwater salary survey covers all of Ireland across a wide range of sectors.

Summary: Sales and Marketing in 2011 remained an employers’ market but certainly in the latter half of the year there was a notable shortage of skilled sales and marketing professionals on the move at most levels. Attrition levels continued to be very low in 2011 and this is predicted to continue into 2012. Companies’ selection processes were mainly focused on industry knowledge and experience, especially in the more technical sectors. This trend is likely to continue into 2012. Sectors with challenges in talent attraction are primarily ICT and FMCG. This is mainly due to the shortage of candidates who are willing to move.

Basic salaries have dropped in these sectors which is leaving it difficult to attract the level of experience required by employers. This should encourage salaries to increase relatively next year to compete with the employed market or it will mean that employers will need to reduce their essential selection criteria

In 2011, Internal Sales, National Account Managers, Key Business Developers and Digital/Online candidates were in demand and this is set to continue into 2012. Language skills are continuing to be in demand at all levels with the strong emergence from the domestic to international/export markets. Marketing roles have a huge emphasis on digital/online/social media experience.

Salaries will see stability with a stronger emphasis on bonus/commission structures. Companies offering benefits are still in the multinational space but as the indigenous market starts to grow, it will need to compete in this space in order to attract the right talent for their organisations. All in all, sales and marketing candidates are moving for career prospects and attractive compensatory commission structures and overall package, not only base salary. Candidates on the move will continue to look for stable, secure and growing companies and are less likely to make risky career moves.

Download the survey by clicking on the link below:

Brightwater Salary Survey 2012

14-Dec-10 10:00 AM

Creativity: For whose problems are you the answer?

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 08:00:00 GMT

You might think that creativity is the last thing you would want to consider in a recession. But for success in the current marketplace, creativity in the way you look for work, make approaches to potential employers and present what you offer, is the very thing that can get you the breaks.

Creativity is the ability to produce something new through imaginative skill, whether it’s a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form. It is a richness of ideas and originality of thinking. Studies of highly creative people have also shown that many have a strong interest in apparent disorder, contradiction, and imbalance, which they perceive as challenges. Such individuals may possess an exceptionally deep, broad, and flexible awareness of themselves.

What is happening in the marketplace at the moment? – very few opportunities with too many people chasing them. And what do members of the herd do? They send out generic CVs by the hundred asking complete strangers to scan their document in the vain hope that they might have a job to offer. But think of it as a marketer, if there is no WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) why should your precious document not end up in the shredder (or worse)? This is Lemming Thinking, that is, doing what everybody else is doing and getting lost in the crowd going over the cliffs.

Creativity doesn’t have to be about vast imaginative leaps. If you can be creative in your approach even in a small way it will make a difference. For example I see hundred of CVs from my clients in any year. Over 90% are written in Times New Roman 10 typeface – which is the default in Microsoft Office. Imagine you were a lowly HR clerk asked to read a pile of CVs. If most of them look the same, are spaced and laid out in the same way wouldn’t you start to have snow blindness after reading just a few of them? So what you could do is to lay out your CV in a different font and different formatting. Avoid exotic typefaces and go for something legible like Garamond of Palatino. And, while you are at it, drop all the generic things that everybody writes (“Excellent communicator, team-orientated”) and put in something original so that your CV looks different and might even get read.

Being creative means looking at your experience in very different ways. Were you ever indispensable in your workplace? If you were, chances are you were what author Seth Godin, in his best-selling book of the same name, calls a Linchpin. Linchpins are people who invent, lead (regardless of whether they’re called leaders or not), connect others and create order out of chaos. Add to that unique knowledge or experience and you have the makings of a Linchpin. One of Godin’s most useful ideas is that a linchpin is someone who combines Talent, Charm and Perserverance in the way that they approach their tasks. Two out of three is just not good enough. If you are not a linchpin you are a cog – and cogs get ground down in time! The essential difference between linchpins and cogs according to Godin is not in learning but in attitude.

The non-creative question to ask is “where are the jobs?” but the professional marketer is expected to produce a range of different questions with the object of getting better exposure for their product in the marketplace. So the questions you could ask yourself might include: where would I be the linchpin and in what sort of roles would I be indispensable? What are the problems that come up again and again in my line of work that I can solve for others?

As a career detective, I sometimes advise clients to look for jobs which are as near to their old jobs as possible and work out from there. The temptation to try something completely different from what you are doing, if you can’t find a similar job, can lead to frustration in your jobhunt. It is better to work out from what you know and be creative in your job search in small iterative ways by looking at roles related to your own. For example, researchers can move to being authors, teachers or radio producers – depending on their preferences.

The temptation in today’s tough job market is that if you think of yourself as a problem – others will think that as well. So ask yourself “To whose problems am I the solution – with all my unique experience, skills, expertise and contacts?”

Brian McIvor MA, MMII is the Marketing Institute's career expert. www.brianmcivor.com

18-Oct-10 8:00 AM

LinkedIn - Best Practice for Marketing Professionals

Annmarie Hanlon - noemail@mii.ie — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Annmarie Hanlon describes what LinkedIn can do for marketing professionals. LinkedIn can expand the reach and impact of your communications. It can garner opinions when exploring new products or markets. It can identify potential future customers. It can get through gatekeepers to decision makers. It can identify potential suppliers at home and abroad. LinkedIn can help your business grow.

Download Full Article (PDF Format, 430KB)

Annmarie Hanlon is the Managing Director of Evonomie a social media consultancy who analyse and develop companies' social media presence. annmariehanlon@evonomie.net www.evonomie.net

12-Oct-10 2:00 PM

Drink Advertising: the Experience of Self-Regulation

Mary Lambkin - noemail@mii.ie — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 04:45:00 GMT

Whether or not advertising should be allowed for alcoholic drinks is a fundamental policy issue and one which attracts ongoing debate. The complex arguments are finely balanced between the social issues concerning encouragement of drinking and the danger of excessive consumption, on the one hand, and the economic value of a very large industry which employs a large number of people and contributes directly and indirectly to the Irish economy.

Professor Mary Lambkin outlines her experience of working with Ireland's system of self-regulation for the Drinks industry.

Download Full Article (PDF Format, 472 KB)

Mary Lambkin is Professor of Marketing in the UCD School of Business. She has written extensively on marketing strategy in academic journals, and also writes commentaries on marketing topics of contemporary interest for professional publications. mary.lambkin@ucd.ie

12-Oct-10 4:45 AM

Generating Demand for Complex B2B Sales

Simon Rogals - noemail@mii.ie — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 16:00:00 GMT

Buyer behaviour in complex B2B sales has changed dramatically in the past 5 years. More of the buying process is happening online and more of it is controlled by customers. Vendors need to understand the new dynamics and adapt their sales and marketing organizations accordingly if they want to succeed.

In this whitepaper we look at the specific characteristics of complex B2B sales and marketing; we review how B2B marketing has changed in the era of digital marketing; we show how companies should generate demand today; and we outline how the marketing and sales units at B2B firms should address the new environment.

Download Full Article (PDF Format, 1 MB)

Simon Rogals is a Director at Bayberry, an independent corporate advisory and management consulting firm. simon.rogals@bayberry.ie www.bayberry.ie

10-Oct-10 4:00 PM

Finding Your Skills - Whose Mouse Mat are you Using?

Niamh Walsh - noemail@mii.ie — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:00:00 GMT

From time to time I ask my clients: what did you take with you from your last marketing job?

What follows is usually a confession about the larceny of small objects.

People take souvenirs with them from one job to another – everything from mouse mats to staplers – to dictating machines – even printers. It’s amazing what goes on when people move jobs.

Then I ask:

What skills have you taken with you from job to job?
What skills got you your first marketing job?
What skills got you promoted, noticed, volunteered for major assignments?

A key concept in marketing is differentiation – how one brand gets distinguished from another. Your CV will not stand out unless you concentrate on making your skills set well-defined and, well-differentiated: for example:

“My best skill is in placing on-line ads for computer games in the teenage marketplace in a cost-effective way for projects with advertising spends of the order of €1m per annum.”

It is practically a job description and gives a clear idea of how somebody could deliver value and difference in a marketing role.

To define your skills set with similar precision requires a lot of work which might be broken down into the following stages:

1 Identify a number of incidents in your professional or personal life where you got results you were proud of.

2 Write out descriptions of each of these events in detail – setting out precisely what you did at each stage. Focus on active words that end in “-ing” such as planning, organising etc.

3 Extract the skills into lists and sort into families. A spreadsheet would be very useful here.

Major skills families you might consider are as follows:

Problem Solving Skills: such as collecting and analyzing data
Creative Skills: such as drawing, designing
Interpersonal skills: such as presenting, coaching
Leadership Skills: such as motivating, delegating
Administrative Skills: such as recording, processing, auditing

4 Look for skills that keep appearing in the various stories and prioritise them with regard to level and marketability. Eliminate low-level skills that everybody else has. Look for the objects of those skills. If your best skill is in writing copy adding the object would look like this. “writing copy for on-line advertising.”

5 Your objective is to find a list of five skills which meet the following criteria:

They are professional level skills and have value in the current marketplace
They are skills you like using
They are skills you would be interested in developing and adding to over time.

What’s the benefit of this to you? It helps you build a good focused CV that will stand out from the rest.

Once you have your well-defined skills set you can use them in a number of different ways:

a. As the core of your CV

b. Brainstorm job titles, other than your last one where those skills would be central to achieving results.

c. Ask your friends, family, contacts: “what marketing jobs or roles do you think would use these skills?”

22-Sep-10 8:00 AM

If there is such a thing as Brand ME - What’s Proposition ME?

Niamh Walsh - noemail@mii.ie — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:00:00 GMT

In previous articles we have looked at thinking about yourself as Brand ME, about regaining your confidence and focussing on what you really want in your new career.

Now it’s time to think about that basic marketing question:

What’s your proposition?

You have a number of things to offer a potential employer:

1. Your Transferable Skills

The skills that you used to achieve results in your previous work can be recycled into new environments. What you have to do is to put in a lot of work into being specific about them. For example saying on your CV that you have experience in writing advertising copy for national campaigns under tight deadlines is much better than describing yourself as an “excellent communicator” (they all say that!).Top selling author Richard Nelson Bolles who wrote the classic job-hunting manual What Color is Your Parachute? sees transferable skills as the secret to success in job-hunting – particularly in a recession. Bolles should know – he was a senior clergyman who got laid off into an employment market that seemed to have no place for him. He became a writer using the skills he had over many years researching and writing sermons for his Sunday service. You could say that he practiced what he preached!

2. Your Expertise and Reach

Think of the areas in your work where you built up detailed product knowledge or experience of how to develop a successful marketing communications plan. Ask yourself – where else is that knowledge relevant? We live in the age of the knowledge economy. What’s your special marketing expertise? Who are your contacts? What’s your “Reach?” It is said that the best two things you can take with you from any top-rated company is their internal telephone directory and their contact lists.

3. Transferable work habits

What’s your way of working? What makes your way of doing things special or unique? Gay Byrne has described the secret of his success as having read the brief, turning up on time and doing what he promised to do. You may have worked in a “hot” company like Apple or Google where their way of doing things ensured their success.

4. The Benefit of your Experience

To be able to articulate what your career has taught you to date is a valuable asset to have in a challenging job interview. Now that you have some time on your hands – what are the lessons you have learned the hard way in your life to date? How will you apply them

Skills are the Key

Identify the range and level of your marketing skills. To do this you need to inventory and classify the skills you have used in your life to date. Some skills are low-level and universal such as keyboarding, talking, taking orders. Other skills are more complex, high-level and encompass other skills – such as leading, motivating, or persuading senior management to buy into your communications strategy. The more high level skills the more transferable they are to other marketing roles; they give you wider options in the types of roles that you can occupy. To check this out examine the career moves of leaders in your own field - look at the starting points of your former senior colleagues. What are the normal entry and promotion routes? Tom Peters, author of the classic management book In search of Excellence advises studying the behaviour and history of “mavericks” – people who think differently – whatever situation they are in. This type of maverick thinking about your skills set may turn your challenges into future opportunities.

What’s your Story?

What are the high-level transferable marketing and management skills and know-how that you have to offer a new, changing and rising market? How will you focus them into a unique Proposition ME in 2010’s changing job market? What does your inner maverick say?

22-Sep-10 8:00 AM

Setting your Sights on Success

Niamh Walsh - noemail@mii.ie — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:00:00 GMT

No professional marketer would place a product without thinking initially about the basic question for the customer:

What’s in it for me? (WIIFM rides again!)

Before looking for new work and new opportunities in a changing marketplace ask yourself:

What do you really want?

What’s in it for you?

What are you looking for?

You will probably answer: A successful marketing career.

But what is that? How do you define success?

Money? Possessions? Profile? Activity? Balanced Lifestyle?

Ask most people what success means and the answer is usually to do with money they earn, where they live – maybe the car they drive. But there’s more to success than that. Research shows that different people have different ideas of what success means for them. For the inventor it’s not just the money from the patent but also the satisfaction that they have made something that other people find useful. For the politician success is power, for the artist success is creating something that is original or beautiful and for the marketer it’s developing an integrated marketing strategy which builds the brand and in turn market share.

What is success for you and how will you achieve it? John Kay, one of Britain’s leading economists in his recent book (March 2010) Obliquity – how our goals are best pursued indirectly suggest that we look at different ways to frame and achieve our goals. He suggests that brands that focus purely on the bottom line and short-term profit do not survive in the longer term; there are other factors to be taken into account. Apple don’t make the cheapest mobile phones or computers but they have built market share, profile and profits because they have built a brand that focuses on design, function and innovation before price.

If you apply the same idea to reorganising your career and looking for work you need to apply a bit of indirect thinking:

1. Review your experience of achieving success indirectly in the past.

You have probably achieved a lot of things obliquely already! Think of times you looked for one thing but got another. Think of campaigns and products where the secondary benefits were better than the primary ones. Most of us probably met our life partners obliquely!

2. Focus on what you want in the long-term.

There are signs of a rising market, of increasing confidence. What do you want – besides money? Lifestyle, family and lack of stress can also be part of your success statement. What do you want your life to look like in 5/10 years time?

3. Success is other things besides HAVING.

Success is also being and doing. Being includes fulfilled in your job, being recognized, promoted. Doing involves the things that interest you. For a professional marketer elements of success may well include recognition and profile in the industry. In broadcasting many people prefer to work for the BBC rather than ITV because the longer term opportunities are better. Think of the power of the brand.

4. Focus on a range of possible outcomes – rather than a single one.

Spend time identifying different versions of your success statement: the very best, the worst, the most likely. Focussing on a range of outcomes builds on the principle that choice empowers people.

It is important to plan your marketing career – even in a recession. While opportunities are limited the best you may be able to get is a job that just pays the bills. But ask yourself – what is the shelf-life of it once the economy recovers? Will you ready to be move when things start buzzing again?

One of the benefits of the recession is that you have time to think and vision.

Success is made to measure – what’s your best fit for you?

22-Sep-10 8:00 AM

Think Brand Me - Make your Job Search a Professional Marketing Project

Brian McIvor - noemail@mii.ie — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:00:00 GMT

You have just lost your job. You have been told there is a recession on and times are hard. What do most people do? They send out hundreds of carbon copy emails at random, get few or no replies and no job offers – and they then announce to the world at large that there are no jobs out there and the country is finished etc. As a marketing professional you know you can do better than that.

Imagine that you were asked to place a world-class product into a unique niche. Before you did that you would need to know who or what you are promoting, what’s unique about them and who might be interested in them? The reality nowadays is that the niche is the jobs market in Ireland and that the brand is you. Use your marketing skills for your benefit –and make your job search a professional marketing project. So what’s your USP? (Unique Selling Proposition – in case you had forgotten). Apply the same guidelines to the problem of placing yourself in the current marketplace – except that you are now the focus. Any you have one guarantee – your product is unique because it is you, your experience, your skills and your attitude. Think of the unique opportunity this offers.

To identify Brand Me you need to review past successes. One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is; what got me hired, promoted or noticed? Working out the Brand Me enigma means asking the question: “for whose problems am I the solution?” Why does my phone ring and not somebody else’s? That’s how other people see you and your brand - you are their personal trouble-shooter. Identify the things you do that others don’t see – the parts of your work that you take particular trouble with – your professional standards, your professional obsessions even! Review your successes ask where did you go the extra mile? If you ever worked in a team ask the question – what did the team rely on me for?

This process of looking both inside and outside are they keys to understanding Brand Me – it is a concoction of what you know, what you can do, who you know and how quickly you can connect with others and make things happen. And this package is for sale – that’s Brand me! Now all you have to do is find who needs you in the current marketplace, make the correct approaches and make sure you get the price right!

If there do not seem to be any openings out there remember that you are working in a hidden market and the jobs market is no exception. In some sectors in Ireland up to 50% (e.g. Information Technology) of the jobs are not advertised and are best found by networking and direct contact following proper research. Employers in 2010 are keener to fill jobs from networks consisting of people they know and trust.

So before you apply the scattergun approach to looking for work - take the time to do what you do best as a professional marketer. Understand that you are the product; understand how the job market works in a recession and how you are going to place and price yourself properly in it. It is the least your clients would expect from you if you were looking for work.

15-Sep-10 10:00 AM

Regaining your Rightful Confidence

Brian McIvor - noemail@mii.ie — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:00:00 GMT

In a previous article, we looked at Brand Me as your strategy to re-position yourself in the current economy. In this article, we look at the universal problem of maintaining your self-confidence.

Losing your job or losing a key contract ranks with the great stressors of life such as death or divorce. The first step in the process is recovery from shock and accepting that what has happened, has happened. What makes it difficult is that the gut reaction can be very strong and the natural tendency is to blame everybody and everything in sight. What you experience is a toxic shock, like doing a driving test after a heavy night’s drinking! What you need is a mechanism to recover your equilibrium. The challenge is to recover full confidence in your abilities – because if you don’t prospective contacts and employers in the marketing industry will sense your unease and will withdraw. Put yourself in their position, would you make yourself available to somebody who is bitter about being a victim of the recession?

The challenge is the decision to be the architect of your own future rather than the victim of your recent past. Here are some ground rules to help you recover your confidence:

Accept your situation and move on. Console yourself with the fact that there one in six people in the current workforce in your situation – out of work and looking for work. You are not the only marketer in this situation. alone. Or, to put it in a more challenging way: If you cannot find a market for yourself – how can you be expected to find a market for your client?Accept the reality the market has moved and move on yourself – it is a 2010 rite of passage!
Avoid people whose reactions are unhelpful to you – such as pessimists, cynics or incurably optimistic people. Each of these will challenge you with their unreal views of life. Find people who can help you who are balanced and wise in their approach to life and their situation.
Find peers who you can work with to help each other. If it is hard for us to empower ourselves our natural humanity makes it easier for us to reach out to others in need. We don’t like to see others suffering in a situation similar to our own and the natural thing to do is to reach out to someone who can return the compliment. Fellow marketing professionals should understand this. Helping others will restore your sense of confidence in yourself. Ask for constructive and positive feedback. Find out the answer to the question – what do others think of my Brand Me?
Tap the power of Pro-Bono work : Now might be a good time to revisit pro-bono work for a number of reasons: Firstly, it shows you can still deliver and it shows others that you are out there and functional. Another benefit is that you may meet people who will refer you to a better class of contact because they see you as being active and empowered in the situation. When you are being interviewed for your next job you can show by your pro-bono involvement that you have kept yourself active during redundancy and kept your skills sharp. You will also gain brownie points for being pro-active and focused on other peoples’ needs – apart from your own.
Be positive and thankful at each stage of the process; ask yourself the paradoxical question – in what way could this experience, which is the worst thing that ever happened me, be the best? Perhaps it has given you time to think, to get a better perspective on what makes you a better professional. The key, as in marketing, is in the attitude!

Finally, remember, lack of confidence is universal - we all doubt our abilities at times but your response to this universal challenge of confidence will be a test of your own particular Brand Me.

15-Sep-10 10:00 AM