Marketingsherpa Blog

Last week, we held our Email Summit 2012 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where more than 750 of your marketing peers joined us for four days of keynotes, workshops, discussion panels, case study sessions and networking.

Brian Solis, Principal, Altimeter, joined us as one of our three keynote speakers for the Summit.  Brian spoke to the audience about integrating social media with your email marketing to engage a new type of connected customers. After his keynote, Brian took a few minutes to chat with GetResponse Community Manager, Jim Ducharme.

In this video interview, Brian talks about two main thoughts:

The connected consumer

• The democratizing of information is creating an empowered and connected consumer
• Technology simply facilitates to bring about change
• Success now comes from listening and learning from consumers

The “Digital Darwinism” concept

• When technology and society evolve faster than your ability to adapt
• Examples of companies fading away because consumer behavior is evolving toward a digital world
• The connected consumer requires you to design the experiences and outcomes they want in the channels they want

Since everyone consumes information in a different way, I’ve also included a rough transcript of the interview with Brian Solis …

One of the things is that sure, we’ve always underestimated, or maybe a better word is underappreciated the customer. But before, they only had so many channels that they could follow. Right? So if they wanted to take action, wanted to attend an event, if they wanted to make a purchase, they still, by and large, had to go through channels where the businesses they were supporting had greater control over the experience.

However, now as information is becoming democratized, as customers are becoming incredibly empowered and connected. They are, by default, becoming more influential than we know, and in some cases, far more influential individually and even more powerfully when they are collectively moving in a similar direction that we have seen all around the world.

Not just in the world of business, but in the world of politics.

When people get together around a common mission, technology just becomes a facilitator to bring about change. And now that change, and it’s just a matter of time in this post-Occupy world, that consumers will land in your lap.

And they’re already starting to land in the laps of every bank that’s out there because they want reform. They want change; they want to be heard; they want to hear and see that you are empathic toward their needs or their wants or desires. They want to be part of the process. They want be valued. They want to, in turn, give back that value in terms of reciprocity and advocacy.

So really, there is no more opportunity or even need to underestimate or undervalue the customer. You can learn from them, and actually be even more successful than you are today. It’s a great thing.

One of the elements at the beginning of the book is sort of justifying what happens when customer behavior changes to the point that it affects your business. Take Facebook, take Twitter, take social networks out of it. I just mean simply by when people make decisions that aren’t in your favor.

At some point, customer behavior gets enough traction that if it goes unaddressed, it starts to move away from you. The concept of “Digital Darwinism,” as I call it, is this idea that when technology and society evolve faster than you ability to adapt.

And that could affect you from a business model, that could affect your products, it could affect your relevancy. So we saw that happen with Tower Records, Warehouse Music, Sam Goody as music started to get digital. We started to see that with Blockbuster and Hollywood Video, as videos became digital. And we start to see that with newspapers and magazines all around the world because customer/consumer behavior is evolving, is changing.

How they use technology is changing. It’s changing their patterns, their behaviors and how they get from point A to point B, how they make decisions. And businesses are not recognizing that opportunity.

Instead, they’re mostly looking at the channels that they are using to say, “Well, if we get into these channels, then we are by default connecting with them the way they wanted to be connected to.”

But they’re not taking into account that what ends up happening is this idea that if you’re not adapting to their needs or their preferences or their stated rules of engagement, then you are not heard. And you may have a million Likes or followers, or whatever it is, in whatever network, and it won’t mean anything if you’re not driving the right kind of engagement or acting, outcomes, sentiments, or desires or values that people have.

My point is that your customer is not only connected, but they’re sophisticated and they want certain experiences through certain channels to certain types of outcomes that you can design for.

My point is that you need to design for it. Now, the hard case is how do you make the case. And that’s kind of the inspiration for this book (The End of Business as Usual). But the reality is that you’re not going to convince the connected consumer to give you their attention by simply showing up where they are.

Related Resources:

Video produced in cooperation with GetResponse Email Marketing. See more at: http://www.getresponse.com/promo/emailtv

In Social Media, Your Return Represents Your Investment — via Brian Solis’s website

Email Summit 2012: Top 5 takeaways from the industry’s largest research-based event

Customer-centric Marketing: Tap into your culture to differentiate from the competition

Small-Business Marketing: 5-step email survey process leads to 600% revenue growth

Social Media Marketing: How to optimize the customer experience to benefit from word-of-mouth advertising

Guided by Buyers: 4 tactics to create a customer-centric sales and marketing strategy

We’ve reached the fourth and final post of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketing Job Seekers blog series, where we take Stephen Covey’s habits and help you practically apply them to your marketing job hunt.

Today, we’ll cover “Synergize,” which is all about working together – or as the old saying goes, “two heads are better than one.” The job search doesn’t have to be a solitary chore. This habit thrives on all that networking you’ve been building upon for years.

We’ll also discuss “Sharpen the Saw,” which wraps it all together in that the job search doesn’t begin and end with the job. It must all revolve around you, your skills and your experience. The last habit works to keep you at the top of your game, even through long gaps of unemployment.

  Read more…

This third installation of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketing Job Seekers blog post series will examine how Steven R. Covey’s fourth and fifth habits can help those looking for marketing positions (you can check out our discussions of “Be Proactive” and then “Begin with the End in Mind” and “Put First Things First” here).

“Think Win/Win” will help you decide which companies to apply to and what message to convey in your cover letters and interviews. The fifth habit, “Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood,” will also help job seekers in crafting their cover letter message and resumes, but also provides tips on preparing for interviews.

Habit 4: Think Win/Win

In a Win/Win solution, all parties should mutually benefit and feel good about the decision.  Covey says, for any type of situation, if both parties cannot reach a Win/Win, then they should agree on ‘No Deal’ or walk away from the table.

• A Win for the company

When I started thinking about how this habit relates to the job search, it reminded me a bit of President John F. Kennedy’s famous quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Instead of your country, though, ask what you can do for the company or organization to which you wish to apply. Then, relay that answer as your value proposition in both your cover letter and interview.

Some companies receive thousands of résumés for just one opening. Chances are you will not be the only applicant to meet all their minimum requirements. You must provide some added value that could push the company forward in some way.

What is your “wow factor”? Determining how the company will win with you as an employee will answer a vital question for any job seeker, “Why should my ideal employer interview me instead of other applicants?”

Inform employers exactly what you’ll bring to the table that no other candidate can. Read more…

It’s that time of year again … time to look back and reflect on what we’ve learned. For the MarketingSherpa blog, we wanted to focus that reflection on what you, our readers, valued most in 2011. So we created our top posts list from the number tweets you shared for each post.

And to say social media marketing dominated this year’s most-tweeted Sherpa blog posts would be an understatement. But it’s not surprising marketers have social marketing on the brain as we found more than two-thirds of organizations increased their social marketing expenditures in 2011, according to the MarketingSherpa 2011 Social Marketing Benchmark Report.

Without further ado, here are your top 11 Sherpa blog posts for 2011 along with a brief (140 character of less) description of the post from your peers …

Read more…

Last week’s marketing career post explored how marketers should implement Steven Covey’s first habit, “Be Proactive,” into their job hunt. Scott Howard, Executive Director of Operations, MECLABS, helped to draw out applicable and helpful tips from the bestselling book. This week, we’ll hear from him again on the next two habits: “Begin with the End in Mind” and “Put First Things First.”

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

I find this to be one of the most important habits for job hunters. Why? Because it is the foundation on which all following habits build. Without an end vision, you won’t know how to best direct all the energy you put into the other habits.

So how do you create this vision? Covey instructs you to create an image, picture or paradigm of the end of your life just as you want it to be. In a job seeker’s case, picture the job you want to have not just now, but also the one you want in the future. Using this reference, you will then determine your behavior and actions now and in the future. It also works on the principle that all things are created twice, once being mental, followed by the physical. Beginning with an end in mind focuses on the mental construction. (The physical will start to take shape in the next habit, “Put First Things First.”)

Scott says, “You need a destination. You can’t know how to get somewhere without first knowing where you want to go.”

Envision your ideal career path. Where do you want to be in five, 10, 20 years? Know the general direction you want to go, and focus your job search on positions that support this vision. In essence, you will create your own personal mission statement.

As a job seeker, I know how tempting it can be to apply to anything and everything. Having a job is better than not having one, right? Well, not necessarily. A résumé riddled with short employments or unrelated job positions does not look good to potential employers. Don’t continually apply to jobs you know you will leave in six months, or that have nothing to do with your end vision.

In The New York Times’ blog, Room for Debate, Katherine S. Newman, professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, explains it further, “…if [your] biography doesn’t match [your] aspirations, it can be a tough sell when newer, less ‘scarred’ job seekers flood the pool from which the boss is choosing.” In other words, taking that unrelated job could hurt your chances of following your ideal career path.

This habit helps to narrows down your job search. Focus on what you what to be and do, then determine the steps, values and principles that will get you there.

Try writing this statement for yourself, and fill in the blanks to it is applicable to you …

“I want to be a (digital marketer, B2B marketer, community manager, etc) so that I can (list your contributions and achievement here). To get to that destination, I will (take an internship, apply for specific job descriptions, further my training or education, build my network, etc).”

Key Takeaway:

• Envision your idea career path. Once you determine your career destination, hone your job search to focus on this ideal direction. If you’re not quite sure where you want your career to go, try reading through MarketingSherpa case studies to get a deeper understanding of certain roles and organizations.

  Read more…

It’s a tough job market out there. According to Bernhart Associates’ Quarterly Digital and Direct Marketing Employment Report, only 40% of companies reported plans to add staff  in the fourth quarter, down from 52% at the beginning of the year. And while decreasing numbers may tempt you to apply to every marketing job you do find, that’s certainly not the most effective way to conduct your job search.

You know from your marketing experience that “batch and blast” and “dialing for dollars” doesn’t work, so why spam potential employers? Instead, prioritize your job search by focusing on positions that will get you on the career path you have in mind to effectively get the most out of each resume you send.

This is where Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People comes in. While not a job seeker advice book, Covey’s book does outline  seven habits that easily and wholly apply to the job hunting process. Over the course of four blog posts, I will explain each habit and provide useful ways to apply each to your job search.

I have also spoken with Scott Howard, Executive Director of Operations, MECLABS, and a big fan of Covey’s book. Scott oversees all operations across MECLABS Primary and Applied Research groups, including hiring approximately 60 new employees over the next year. He was kind enough to share some additional job seeking tips you can derive from the “7 Habits.”

  Read more…

Do you love your marketing job? If you do, you might be in the minority, according to CareerBliss, an online career community dedicated to helping find workplace happiness.

CareerBliss determined the top 10 hated jobs by analyzing hundreds of thousands of employee-generated reviews from 2011. And, two marketing management positions landed on the list.

Director of Sales and Marketing hit at number two, with only IT Director beating it out. Ouch. And Marketing Manager slipped on the list at number 10 spot. Not a promising outlook for those not yet in management, and a worse outlook for those already there.

CareerBliss provided two reasons why the positions earned their spots on the top 10 hated jobs: “an absence of room for growth” and “a lack of direction from upper management.”

After reading this study, I thought about what I would do if I were in the unhappy marketers’ shoes. So I delved further into the topic by reading every article and study Google would give me on the topic. Nothing I found directly answered my question. However, putting all the readings together allowed me to form some ideas to help jog your thinking.

While I wouldn’t suggest quitting your current job just yet (at least not without some research of your own), I do hope this post can give you some hope of getting out of that job you hate. I’d also love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

In this blog post, we’ll see if there’s real truth behind those reasons given by CareerBliss and what you can do to overcome them. Read more…