Does Your Brand Really Matter?

Many B2B companies or service businesses struggle with the concept of their brand.  Some organizations think of their brand only at the most rudimentary level – as a combination of logo, colors, design and taglines that they might use on their website or printed materials.  Others may have a deeper understanding that branding extends to the company’s personality, price, service and customer interactions. 

But however they consider their brand, many B2B organizations think that branding is something that’s only important for well-known, nationally advertised consumer products.  Granted, major consumer products companies can invest a lot of marketing dollars to reinforce their image.  But even without that advantage, companies should pay careful attention to their brand.

That’s because in one sense, perhaps the most important sense, a brand is a promise.  As Lois Geller explains in “Why A Brand Matters,” (Forbes.com, May 23) when you think of some top brands, such as McDonald’s Coca Cola or Apple, you immediately know what they promise.  The combination of a brand’s attributes creates an impression in the customer’s mind.  For instance, Geller says, when think of Volvo, your first thoughts are probably going to be something like “well built, comfortable, Swedish” and, most of all, “safety.”

The good news is that you don’t have to be a major company to create your own particular brand attributes.  In some respects, reinforcing a set of brand attributes for a B2B company is easier because you have a much more focused customer base. The other advantage is that you probably have more direct contact with customers, making the role of employees in reinforcing the brand vitally important. 

Employees should know what your brand stands for and what their roles are in supporting the brand. This is particularly true as social media and other communications methods have given customers methods to share their experiences – both good and bad – at light speed.  A failure to live up to a brand promise, whether through a poor sales experience or a faulty product, can quickly snowball into a full-fledged crisis of confidence among customers.  Studies by the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs show that a dissatisfied customer may tell as many as 11 people about his or her experience,
and each of them will tell others.

If your company needs to work on defining your brand’s promise, here are some questions we use with NMMC clients:
• What is your company's mission?
• What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
• What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?
• What qualities do you want them to associate with your company?

Answering these questions about your brand will pay big dividends.

Social Media No Longer a Novelty for Business

It’s hard to ignore the impact of social media on the way we communicate.  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other platforms have provided tools for almost instantaneous communication and feedback about products and services.
Initially, social media activity was associated with college students connecting via Facebook™ and celebrities Tweeting about their latest adventures … or misadventures in many cases.  Now, however, use of social media is increasingly important for business.

If you have any doubt that social media has a place in business, here are some statistics that should change your mind. SocialMediaB2B.com notes 60 percent of B2B marketers already have implemented a social media strategy, or will in the next year; 53 percent of B2B companies actively participating on Twitter; and 47 percent of them active on LinkedIn. If these statistics alone aren’t enough to convince you about the power of social media, here’s a statistic that will – Dell sold $3 million worth of computers on Twitter!
This information is part of an article I recently wrote for OfficeLine, a bi-monthly publication produced by United Stationers, a long-time NM Marketing Communications client.

In addition to citing the growth of social media, the article provided a number of tips from experts on how to begin implementing a successful social media strategy.  Among the tips are blogging regularly to increase traffic to your website and finding ways to create meaningful engagement with your customers.

These are just some of the ways to incorporate social media into your B2B marketing.  If you’d like to discuss ways to begin or enhance your social media strategy, give me a call - 847.657.6011.

Effectively Handling E-Mail Bullies

I recently received a rather rude e-mail. It made me wonder what makes certain supposedly professional business people turn into contemptuous, mean-spirited bullies when they get on their e-mail account?

Part of the problem may stem from the ease of writing and sending an e-mail. It’s simple to react quickly, especially when emotions or a challenging or complicated situation come into play. If you’ve ever been scatter-bombed with hostile, demeaning, or demanding e-mails from a boss, a client, or a business associate, you know what it’s like, but what you probably don’t know is how to respond.

Here are some ways to handle rude, accusatory and mean-spirited e-mail:

• Report threats or vulgar language to the ISP. These violate the Terms of Service of ISPs. Send the e-mail to abuse@ the ISP.

• If you receive a rude, over-the-top e-mail or one that makes personal attacks on you, wait before responding. Wait until the next day or two. Think hard about whether you really need to respond.

• If the e-mailer is misinformed, you can try to correct the misinformation. Don’t reply in kind. Do your best to take the high road and be courteous.

• Reach for the phone. In many cases, the best option may simply be a phone call. This is especially true when dealing with clients or colleagues, since it will probably eliminate misinterpretations and help you get to the heart of any issue.

And finally, when writing your own e-mails a good common sense rule to follow is the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated.

Is Funville the Right Place for Disaster Info?

The January 13 accident of the 4200-passenger Costa Concordia cruise ship is worldwide news and a public relations black eye for the ship’s owner, Carnival Corporation.

As this is being written a few days after the incident, the grounding and capsizing of the giant vessel seems to be a case of severe human error. According to many news reports, Captain Francesco Schettino deliberately steered off course so that he could show off the ship to residents on the island of Giglio, Italy, home of the giant ship’s headwaiter. After ripping a hole in hull of the $450-million vessel, the captain fled the ship before many of the passengers.

While it’s hard to anticipate a ship’s captain going rogue, it seems that an appropriate crisis communications plan should be in place, regardless of the cause of the crisis.
Of course, Carnival has a communications plan in place, using time-tested crisis communications procedures for getting out as much info as quickly as possible. However, there seems to be a significant disconnect between the messages and the way many of them are delivered.

Despite having numerous promotional messages, banner flashes and other catchy elements on the homepage of their website, there is nothing directing readers to more information about the Costa Concordia.

If you search, you can finally find the information on the blog page, called Funville. I’m sure the irony is apparent to many website users.

Facebook, Twitter and a company’s website are all valuable means of quickly communicating with customers. However, cruise lines are in the business of selling fun. The bright colors and promotional messages that dominate the Carnival Cruise website certainly send mixed signals when dealing with a serious topic such as passenger safety.

A more appropriate crisis communications response might be to set up a temporary landing page for information about the incident. That would be a service to travelers, families and other interested parties. It would make the information easier for them to find while separating the promotional content for customers who weren’t concerned about the Costa Concordia.

That would be a better plan, because I think we’d all agree this doesn’t look like Funville.

Penn State Teaches Painful PR Lessons

Universities are supposed to be bastions of knowledge, research and education. Unfortunately, the allegations about child abuse by former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky are providing a different kind of learning experience. The tragic situation has been steadily morphing into a case history for mishandling a crisis.

State College, Pa., home to Penn State, has long been known as Happy Valley. The name clearly seemed to fit, especially when it came to the football program. In an era of constant coaching turnover, Joe Paterno had coached there since 1949. He was head coach for 49 of his 61 years on staff, winning 409 games and graduating 89% of his players.

The image of Happy Valley, built over many years, came crashing down quickly in early November. A grand jury report accused Sandusky – the former defensive coordinator – of sexually abusing eight boys in incidents dating back to 1998. The charges themselves were horrific. But the response of the university, both to the initial allegations in 1998 and 2002 as well as the grand jury report, was even more puzzling.

As the story has evolved, it appears the university’s response to the reported incident was slow and not very aggressive. Despite his stature on campus, Paterno seemed content to let the matter drop and not conduct any proactive follow up. Many theories have been offered for why more was not done. Human nature, internal politics or profit motives may have prevented asking the tough questions.

Asking the right questions at the right time could have set Penn State on a different course. Yes, the university likely would still have suffered a black eye if the allegations were true. But the pain might have been limited to a few news cycles, rather than stretching for weeks. Instead, the university seemed surprised by the grand jury report and struggled to deal with the situation.

One of the cardinal rules of crisis communications is to provide fast and accurate information. If you are unsure of the facts, then limit your statements to what you can confirm. In this case, no one at Penn State was following the same playbook. Graham Spanier, former university president, strongly defended two of his staff in his initial comments, and then he had to backtrack. Soon, all three were gone.

The trustees were slow to react, leading to the spectacle of Paterno announcing his resignation in the afternoon before he was fired later that same night. Even in trying to do the right thing, the various parties seemed to be tripping over each other.

After trustee Ken Frazier, CEO of Merck, was named to lead the school’s internal investigation, questions arose about conduct at Merck. Louis Freeh, former FBI director, was quickly named as his replacement in the investigation. No one could question Freeh’s independence, but it kept the story alive for a few more days.

Of course, the final chapter in this situation is still being written as investigations and legal inquiries proceed. But regardless of the final outcome, it’s clear that the stature of the university and the legacy of its long-time football coach have suffered immeasurable harm.

Raising Expectations For Cubs and B2B Marketers

Now that Theo Epstein has finally been named Cubs’ president of baseball operations, I was struck by the similarity between expectations for the new Cubs’ leader and business-to-business marketers.
As a lifelong Cubs’ fan, like many others in Chicago I’m hoping that Epstein will finally lift the curse that‘s followed the team and produce a World Series champion. Expectations are high because the Cubs paid a high price to bring him into the fold, and the team already has a big payroll.
A Forrester Research study, “Bigger B2B Marketing Budgets Come With Great Expectations” raises similar issues for marketers. The report noted that after several years of making cuts, B2B marketing leaders have larger budgets in 2011. However, with these increases in spending comes more scrutiny and greater expectations for results.

Another parallel between the Cubs and B2B marketers is that the raised expectations are coming during a time when the landscape for both baseball and marketing is dramatically changing. Baseball is now making greater use of computer analytics.
Likewise, marketers are facing new challenges to effectively understand how to track, manage and apply many of the new social media tools, online marketing channels and changing customer expectations.

The bottom line, though, is that both Epstein and marketers must effectively use their budgets to achieve results. For many marketers, that means integrating conventional techniques with new online tactics. Marketers need to better understand the impact marketing and technology integration can have in making customer experiences more gratifying and satisfying, thereby improving loyalty, retention and repeat purchases.

Staying Adaptable Critical for Marketing Success

What will B2B marketing communications look like in the future? There’s no consensus, but the warp speed pace of technological change is affecting the way customers receive information. However, a couple of broad trends stand out.

The use of digital communications is clearly accelerating. By 2015, paper use by the magazine, newspaper, book and other publishing sectors is expected to fall by up to 21% compared with 2010 levels, according to a report released by RISI, which provides information to the paper industry.

And within the digital sphere, more people will depend on smaller handheld devices to get information. According to DisplaySearch, tablet computer sales this year are growing at the phenomenal rate of 400 percent over last year. In the second quarter alone, Apple shipped 10 million iPads.

Of course, many pundits argue that these changes do not spell the death of traditional computers, especially in the corporate world. Investments in existing hardware and networks, as well as handheld security and performance issues, will keep them as a fixture for quite some time.

But as mobile usage grows, marketing communications and email messages – with all of their graphics and attachments – will need to be tailored for these mobile platforms. Otherwise, customers and prospects will simply ignore your messages if the information is in an inconvenient form.

Adapting your messages to new media is critical, but you still need to rely on proven communications principles. For most B2B marketing, there will always be a problem to solve, a solution to offer and a benefit to prove to your customers. Successful marketers will adapt to new media to deliver those messages.