Drew McLellan, Author at McLellan Marketing Group

ROI of a serial social marketer (Sandy Carter)

December 12, 2008

Drew’s Note: As you know, I try to host guest bloggers every Friday. Sandy Carter just finished writing her newest book, The New Language of Marketing 2.0. The book contains 54+ case studies of companies who have successfully blended traditional marketing tactics with their web 2.0 brethren.

Sandy kindly offered to share summaries of three of her book’s case studies. Rather than cram all three into one very long blog post….I’ve broken them up and will post them separately throughout today.

Without further ado…enjoy Sandy Carter!

OK. I admit it. I tweet multiple times a day, I have 2 blogs, and I love technology. My passion is reaching customers and having them connect with my company in new and smart ways. As such, I experiment, learn from my peers, and measure these new tools for marketing.

As a marketing executive at IBM, I have found that these Marketing 2.0 techniques, combined with traditional marketing methods, drive down costs and increase revenue. My passion led to a book which resulted in over 54 case studies of companies using these hybrid combinations today and I’d like to summarize highlights from 3 of those stories.

Case Study 1: The Coca-Cola Company and Eepybird.com use Lightly Branding

People are very visual. In a recent preview of Google’s year-end Zeitgeist, “youtube” is so far listed among the fastest-rising search terms of 2008. Combine that interest in video with word-of-mouth and you have a powerful influencer in your marketing mix. Let us have a look at a compelling example of “lightly branding”, or the impact of others putting a face on your brand and then “endorsing” it by virally passing it around!

We are no doubt all familiar with the video of 2 “scientists”, 101 bottles of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos that showed the reaction of the 2 products together in a huge fountain effect.

After initially being posted online and shared with just one person, by the end of that night, there were over 20,000 views. Interesting, but perhaps less well-known, is the background on the inspiration for those videos. A juggler and a lawyer/entertainer, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, respectively, are the originators of these experiments and it was the wildly enthusiastic response (both online and in-person at their local theatre where they perform) that set them on a path to spending the next several months working on creating more effects and the concept was born.

Their company, EepyBird, combines the power of entertainment and marketing to assist companies in lightly branding their products. Not long after the initial buzz, EepyBird had heard from both Mentos and The Coca-Cola Company. Michael Donnelly, director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing at The Coca-Cola Company, realized the potential from this viral video and its impact on the company brand and sales, and said he saw it as an opportunity to celebrate creativity, self-expression and amateur artistry. The two companies formed a partnership and went on to create another experiment (#214), including a viral video advertising contest called “Poetry in Motion”, in which customers were challenged to produce and create their own videos and the winner was flown out to work directly with EepyBird on the next video. Once again, this video saw a huge amount of viral buzz, with EepyBird citing over eight million views.

In this case study, EepyBird’s videos helped customers to see the Diet Coke and Mentos brands in a new medium that was both authentic and fun. Customers were experiencing the brand without watching a commercial and this propelled users to share it with their respective social networks resulting in buzz around the world.

But what was the ROI of lightly branding? The results were that Diet Coke saw significant sales of 2-liter bottles and, Mentos’ sales increased by about 15%.

Sandy Carter is author of the new book, The New Language of Marketing 2.0, which leverages the ANGELS methodology (ANGELS stands for: Analyze the Market, Nail the Strategy, Go- to- Market socially, Energize the Channel & Market, Leads and Revenue, and Scream with Technology.) Sandy is IBM’s Vice President, SOA and WebSphere Marketing, Strategy, and Channels. She is responsible for IBM’s cross-company, worldwide SOA initiatives and is in charge of one of IBM’s premier brands, IBM WebSphere.

Sandy blogs at Marketing 2.0: From a whisper to a scream and you can catch her on Twitter too!

Every Friday is "grab the mic" day. Want to grab the mic and be a guest blogger on Drew’s Marketing Minute? Shoot me an e-mail.

Does being good make you invisible?

December 11, 2008

I hope you’re not good. Good is fine. Acceptable. Meets my expectations. Good is boring. In fact, for most of us — it’s invisible.

When was the last time you told a friend about an experience you had that was good? A meal that was good. Customer service that was adequate. Nothing wrong…but nothing special either?

You didn’t — right? Something extraordinary (good or bad) needs to happen to get you to tell someone about it.

We don’t notice, let alone talk about the ordinary. The expected. The good enough. We don’t get excited unless something extraordinary happens. That’s how we live our lives as consumers.

But when we put on our marketing hat, we’re astonished that the marketplace doesn’t applaud our efforts every day. Truth be told…many organizations are satisfied with just delivering satisfactory.

You don’t have to create a circus in your consultation room or have minstrels wandering through your store. You don’t have to serve gourmet snacks outside the dressing room. But you do have to find a way to infuse something remarkable into your product or service.

Now here’s the tricky part – it also has to be genuine. Consumers are not only jaded but they’re smart. Rightfully so – they hate being manipulated and they can spot insincerity a mile away. So a manufactured moment feels forced and insulting. The trick to creating the extraordinary is that it needs to come from the heart. The heart of the organization. Your brand.

It’s not as hard as you might think to take the leap to extraordinary. Take stock. Scrutinize every time you interact with a client and let your imagination off its leash. How could you change that moment and go beyond good to reach for spectacular? What would feel special and genuine from both your customers and your employees’ point of view?

What could you do that’s worth talking about?

The more important your message, the less you should say

December 8, 2008

My daughter will be 16 next summer. Which means she sends a lot of text messages. It also means I send a lot of text messages. When in Rome…

One truth I have discovered is that even in that abbreviated medium, it’s easy to be long-winded.

For every sentence I text, her retention and response gets shorter. The briefer I am, the more attention she pays and the more importance she seems to assign to my message.

If I really want an answer to a specific question or really want her to hear me about something, I use a single sentence. Then, I get her full attention.

Boy, is there a marketing lesson in that.

The more copy you use to deliver your messages…the less important they seem. The more messages you shove into a single ad, blog post or brochure — the more likely your big message will be lost in the blur.

When it really matters….say less.

Everything is marketing

December 8, 2008

I conducted the MMG brand discovery process for a non-profit over the weekend (hard to gather volunteer board members during the work week) and at the end of a long but fruitful day, their board president said, "I’ve learned so much today. Not just about marketing our organization but this stuff applies to my work, my relationships…my life!"

He’s right of course. Marketing’s core lessons are not only universal but they’re really basic tenets of relationships.

A few years ago, I wrote a series that I think is a very good reminder to all of us of these core lessons. I hope you’ll take a few minutes and read the entire "Marketing Tips from My Italian Grandma" series. Even if you vaguely remember some of them…I promise an ah ha moment or two.

I’ve love to get your thoughts on the series and the lessons.

Want to work a little smarter?

December 7, 2008

The minds behind Working Smarter (SmartDraw‘s blog) decided that they would create a small network of blogs that they believe can serve business leaders with practical, actionable information and ideas.

As they said in their official announcement: "Today we are proud to formally announce the launch of the Working Smarter Network, WSN for short, an exclusive consortium of websites and blogs that provide varied, relevant and useful information to help business people become more effective."

I’m delighted to report that I was invited to be one of the 13 charter members. If you’d like to check out the other sites that were invited to join….here you go.

I have no doubt you’ll find some useful and thought provoking reading among these sites.

The perfect stocking stuffer and I’m giving them away for FREE!

December 5, 2008

I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit freaked out that it’s the gift giving season again. But…I’m bucking it up and spending much of the weekend shopping. You?

I can help you cross one thing off your list. My good friend Mitch Matthews and his wife Mel created a game a few years ago that is really gaining national traction.

Much like the iPod, this game is the perfect blend of form and function.

Cool looking and a blast to play….Do You Q Friends and Do You Q Dates (two different versions with completely different questions) are perfect for family gatherings, work parties (at MMG, we play it via e-mail at work) or just about anywhere.

It’s a thought-provoking, laughter ensuing game that helps you connect. It really is the perfect stocking stuffer. It’s also an excellent way to open staff meetings, freak out an interviewee or toss in your briefcase as you board a plane.

Now, you can buy one online or you can win one of five FREE games that I have to give away. To be entered into the drawing…just leave a comment below. That’s it.

I’ll randomly pick five numbers and voila, we’ll have our winners.

Because I want to get these mailed to you before the end of the holiday season….we’ll announce winners on Thursday morning.

Update: You bet — we’ll mail it to anywhere on the globe. So don’t think you’re not eligible if you’re not in the States!

Update #2: The contest is closed. I asked my daughter to pick 5 random numbers and as a result the winners are: Justin Brady, Jill Konrath, Ed Moriarty, Karin and Monica. I will be in touch to find out which version of the game you’d like.

5 Ways to Work Less and Make More Money (Sam Carpenter)

December 5, 2008

Drew’s Note: As I try to do every Friday, I’m pleased to bring you a guest post. Meet another thought leader who shares his insights via the blogosphere. So without further ado…Sam Carpenter. Again. Enjoy!

Most people want two things: peace and prosperity. I was – and still am – no different.

Eight years ago, I was working ridiculously long hours for meager pay, crumbling under stress, and had zero time for myself or my family. The President and CEO of Centratel, a struggling telephone answering service business that specializes in emergency message relay, I put in 80 to 100-hour workweeks for 15 years, simply trying to keep my business and personal life afloat.

It was a week-to-week epic, making payroll, keeping staff and clients happy, and covering the bills for me and my children. I had no close personal friends or romantic relationships. After a decade and a half of this torment, my body was a wreck from the stress, and my doctor – convinced I was depressed – prescribed anti-depressants and then stimulants.

In my book Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Working Less and Making More, I describe my step-by-step transformation to now working 2 hours a week, instead of 80, and how, in a steeply declining telephone answering service industry, Centratel has blossomed, with more than 900 clients across the United States.

Follow these five integral steps to “working less and making more” and your operation will become enormously more efficient. At the same time, watch your personal life become more relaxed and rewarding for yourself and the people you care about.

Understand there is a universal propensity for order and efficiency. Despite the contentions of mass media, 99.9 percent of everything works just fine. Consider the systems of your life: The car you drive, the TV you watch, and the miraculous body that carries you around. You just have to “climb on board” and work to enhance the quality of the systems of your life that are not exactly the way you want them to be.

Shift your mechanical perspective of the world’s workings. Take a position “outside and slightly above” your work and your life. Understand that by perfecting a primary system’s sub-systems, the primary system will in turn be perfected.

End the fire-killing. Instead of repairing problems as they arise, dig one layer deeper, identify the inefficiencies, fix the dysfunctional systems that cause the inefficiencies, and stop problems from re-occurring.

Create simple yet comprehensive documentation. It has to happen. Boring, but true: the existence of documented protocols is the single greatest difference between large successful businesses and small struggling businesses.

Hire people who “get it.” You must surround yourself with people who agree with your system’s philosophy and methodology. If your employees aren’t on the same page, you won’t get the results you want.

So, if your day is too busy fixing recurring problems, take a step out of the fire-killing routine and get down to the heart of what is producing the recurring problems. Could it be that within your operation, processes are not being maintained and upgraded, tasks are not being delegated or automated, and attention isn’t being paid to the documentation and control of the systems that create the results? If so, then go to work and tweak those faulty systems into perfection.

Sam Carpenter has been featured by dozens of national media, including NPR, ESPN radio, The Wall Street Journal radio, Startup Nation, KTLA Morning News (Los Angeles), and Small Business Television. President and CEO of Centratel, the number one telephone answering service in the United States, he has a background in engineering, publishing, and journalism. Visit www.workthesystem.com to purchase your copy of his book, Work The System: The Simple Mechanics of Working Less and Making More, and to register for one of his two-day Work The System Boot Camps.

Every Friday is "grab the mic" day. Want to grab the mic and be a guest blogger on Drew’s Marketing Minute? Shoot me an e-mail.

Quiznos sponge monkeys revisited – Buzz isn’t enough

December 3, 2008

When I say Quizno’s "Spongmonkeys" odds are you know what I am talking about. Considering the short time that campaign ran, that is a very effective demonstration in the power of creating a buzz.

In case you aren’t familiar… back in 2004, Quiznos launched a campaign starring some odd sponge monkeys created in the UK. Apparently someone say the sponge monkeys, shared them with the agency (The Martin Agency) representing Quiznos and voila….buzz was born.

Here’s one of the spots, just to jog your memory. (E-mail and RSS subscribers…click on the headline to see the TV spot)

But the little creepy creatures only lived a short while before the plug was pulled on the campaign.

Why?

While the campaign had us all talking about Quiznos, it did not have us eating their food. Their sales numbers were down. The second and perhaps even more compelling reason is that the franchisees hated the campaign. Although the restaurants’ target audience is 18-34 year olds and the spots were cewated with this audience in mind — they sort of forgot about the other critical audience, their own franchisees. And most of them were over 35+ and have to live with people commenting on the campaign every single day. And the comments weren’t pretty.

Would it have smarter to do a little market research and see if anyone had an adverse reaction to coupling food with rodents? Yes. Would it have been smarter to share the campaign with the front line franchisees, that can make or break a campaign’s success? Yes.

The lesson for all of us? Buzz for buzz sake is just not enough. If the strategy isn’t sound and the key players are not on board, odds are not in your favor.

Put yourself in the Quiznos marketing director’s shoes. You’ve launched the campaign. People are reacting (both positively and negatively) with great emotion. You are getting pressured to pull the plug. What could you do to take advantage of the buzz on both sides of the fence?

Marketing Rocks. You’re A Marketing Leader. Act That Way. (Steve Roesler)

December 2, 2008

While I’m on vacation, I’ve asked some very smart bloggers whom I am fortunate to consider my friends, to share some insights with you. Enjoy their brilliance because before you know it, you’ll be stuck with me again! I’m back tomorrow, so soak up this last bit of smarts.

Last but in no way least, Steve Roesler.

"One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.”

–Dennis A. Peer

Do you measure your contribution and success by the caliber of the people who follow you? In this case, let’s talk about clients.

I’m betting that most people are simply "happy to have clients." I read the news.

I also read my own financials to find out what’s profitable and who is profitable. Not all clients are created equal. Right now it’s easy to ignore cost-of-doing-business in order to opt for any business at all. So let me ask you this:

Are you in business for the long haul?

If so, you’ve already looked at how to differentiate yourself from the pack "technically." Now it’s time to rise higher above the crowd as a Marketing Leader by the caliber of your clientele.

No Gas But Plenty of Yacht Buyers

In the ’70s I lived in a tiny town in New Jersey whose main employer was Pacemaker Yachts. These 60-foot puppies sold for six figures in 1970s dollars. At the same time, gas was being rationed on odd/even days according to the number on one’s license plate. Bad times, eh?

One morning I walked to the diner (uh, it was New Jersey) for an artery-clogging breakfast. Seated at the table across from me was the Sales Manager of Pacemaker Yachts, comedian Jerry Lewis, and Olympic swimming champ-turned-Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller. A deal was being closed for the purchase of two yachts while I was counting the change in my pocket to make sure I could leave a decent tip.

What I learned was this:

In bad times, people with lots of money still buy lots of expensive, exclusive things.
The publicity from this sale–due to the fame and "quality" of the clients–generated more business from "quality" clients.
The company shut down it’s small-boat, dinghy operation. Not enough buyers, not enough profit margin, and no publicity when someone did make a purchase.

Who Are Your Yacht Buyers and Dinghy Dwellers?

According to a survey of U.S. senior executives, marketing will be the most important area of expertise for the next-generation of leaders.

The study, commissioned by the Institute of International Research, sought to identify key areas for leaders. Marketing was the clear choice, with 31% of votes, followed by 20% for operations and 16% for financial expertise. Sales and engineering were deemed least critical to leadership with 11 and 6% respectively.

I’m choosing to take this as super-encouraging news. It means that organizational leaders are becoming increasingly knowledgeable about, and accountable for, marketing. It also indicates that the importance of marketing won’t be the "sell" that it had to be in the past. Leadership and Marketing now appear on the landscape as intertwined.

With that in mind:

Sit down today and figure out who, in your world, are the Yacht Buyers and the Dinghy Dwellers.
Are you willing to allow those DD’s to float out to sea while you free up time to target your Yacht Buyers?
Will your decision position you as a profitable Marketing Leader or a weekend sailor?

Life is filled with choices. Successful lives are filled with wise choices.

Your choices and the actions that follow will reveal the kind of marketing life you really want.

Drew’s Note: Steve Roesler is one of those guys who just seems to know quite a bit about everything. His blog, All Things Workplace, has won many an award and earned Steve a legion of fans. I’ve always found him to be not only smart as a whip, but incredibly generous and quite witty. Who could ask for more?

The Art Of Listening In Social Media (Jason Falls)

December 1, 2008

I recently posed the question to a group of advertising professionals, “What do you think the first step to social media success is?” The answers I got were varied and some were close to being right but most of them made the common mistake of concentrating on the technology. “Get an IT guy who can translate all that web stuff,” is a common response.

But social media isn’t about technology, it’s about communications. The technology is just a common mechanism that facilitates the message exchange.

The first step to success in social media is listening.

But how do you listen to millions of blogs, posts on social networks and billions of websites? Well, it’s easier than you think. Here’s how:

Google Alerts
Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and type in a search for your brand or company name. Select “Comprehensive” as the type and “Once a day” for how often then put in your email address. Now do the same for your CEO’s name, any variations or additions to your company or brand (sub-brands, divisions, etc.). You’ll get an email once daily for each alert. Click on the links and see what people are saying about you.

You’ll want to refine your search term based on the number of irrelevant links you get. For instance, a search for “fruit loops” may yield lots of posts about fruit or even posts on roller coasters talking about loops. By adding quotation marks in the search term (“fruit loops”) instead of (fruit loops), you’ll get more relevant posts.

If you’d like to keep the links, sign up for and use a bookmarking site like Delicious.com. By using a one-click bookmarklet (or button on your browser’s top frame) and filling out a few simple fields about the page you’re saving, you can organize and save and endless number of pages. (For my bookmarks on public relations, click here.)

You can also take the efficiency one step further and subscribe to the Google Alerts as a feed in your favorite RSS Feed Reader. If you don’t know what an RSS Feed Reader is, go watch the CommonCraft video. It will change how efficiently you surf the web.

Other Listening Mechanisms
Keep in mind Google Alerts doesn’t catch everything. You’ll also want to conduct searches of Twitter and perhaps even a more advanced search of blogs using Bloglines, Icerocket or Technorati. But these results listings come with RSS feeds as well, making it very easy to manage. (Hint: You really ought to figure out that RSS thing.)

For more advanced listening, there are a number of paid services that not only help you identify who is saying what about your company, but also provide analysis and insights to help you … or pretty charts and graphs for the CEO who doesn’t want to try and understand it. Those services range from economical (Radian6, BuzzLogic, BrandWatch) which normally don’t include human analysis, to pricey (Nielsen Online, Cymfony, Collective Intellect). Some, like K.D. Paine & Partners, offer both do-it-yourself solutions and full-service reporting.

I’m Listening. Now What?
Now that you’re keeping up with what the world is saying about you or your product or service, you need to know what to do with it. There are several schools of though here, but let’s look at some examples:

1. Dell Computers was suffering from historically bad PR in 2006 when they decided to start listening to their customers. Now, Lionel Menchaca and others in the blogging/social media effort at Dell try to respond to ever mention of Dell online, be it on a blog, Twitter or elsewhere. All listening has done for Dell is turn their customer service reputation around, 180-degrees.

2. Comcast Cares monitors Twitter for mentions of cable issues, access problems and more when someone mentions the company. Again, the customer service reputation for Comcast, at least within the Twitter community, gets high marks.

3. You can also just choose to respond to only the negative, or at least only those that might be inaccurate. In January, Sara from Breaking Up With Bread posted her concerns that Maker’s Mark bourbon may have aggravated her gluten intolerance and made her sick. When the master distiller posted a comment not only assuring her there were no glutens in the bourbon, but even provided a link to a government study that verified that, the blogger posted an apology and took the entire post off her blog.

4. And, of course, the baby step is to respond to the positive to engender a multiplier effect on the good vibes. By posting thank yous when people mention your brand, it at least sends a message to the writers and readers of that particular post that you are, in fact, listening. But I would caution you that if you do this, people will expect you to respond to the negative as well. Be prepared, even if this method is the toe in the water.

Listening is really the easy part. It’s knowing how to respond and react to what you hear that is the fundamental indicator of how a company will be received in the social media space. While each company or brand will need to develop their own personality in doing so, the key to success is simple:

Respond online the way you would respond to the same thing being said in person and in public and the way you would want to be responded to if you were voicing the concern.

As risky as it might seem, as intimidating as the permanence of the web is, it just takes removing the marketing hat, setting aside your tendency to try and control the message and just have a conversation with people. Try it. It will change the outcomes to your liking.

Drew’s Note: Jason Falls is a stand up guy. He is an natural conversationalist, which may be why he gets social media like nobody’s business. He’s the director of social media at Doe-Anderson, a brand-building agency in Louisville, Ky. He is the author of SocialMediaExplorer.com, a leading social media, public relations, marketing and communications blog. He’s also completely ga ga over his kids. Another reason to like him.

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