Despite being one of the early adopters of Internet - first Mosaic experiences in mid 90s', earlier to that local network user in Helsinki University of Technology and commercial online services from late 90s' - Still power of Internet amazes me.... and I get irritated how people (and companies) are lost with its power.
First some good news - about my blog. Something what started as a way to improve writing skills and sharing ideas across industries - today visitors from 48 countries, latest "rush" from Pakistan. Disappointing part is that there is practically no idea exchange. Very few comments even when my texts tend to have against the conservative and common wisdom opinions.
Most common search engine (Google) phrase: marketing functions - of which zero from my home country Finland. For Finns most read texts are related to international expansion. Another disappointment - my first texts from early 2010 are practically never read. Not even the one which I consider to be loaded of strategic thinking: http://nordicsbusiness.blogspot.com/2010/01/business-models-and-commodities-and-ict_18.html. Well issues with marketing are global and led in many companies with theories from 50s' and 80s'... so cannot blame.
So what amazes me? I have been involved and responsible to create commercial success for over 25 online stores and services, both international and domestic... so been there and done that - never had imagined that I could readers from so many countries.
Let's stop analyzing my tiny blog and move to irritation part - related to social media
Most of the other blogs I have read or looked into - majority of those are boring. Old dated ideas from 5-10 years back brought to life as "new exciting ideas", obvious and self-evident advises or praising one simple idea and most terrible ones are advertisement blasts.
99 % of Linkedin discussion starters are ads. Even the people who claim to be professionals of social media blast their one way ads as "group discussion starters". Do they really believe that someone gets excited?
Majority of Facebook content from companies (read bigger companies) is "one-way" campaign based. Same offline campaign blast continues in online space added normally with some kind of contest: "give your opinion and win toothpaste for one year's consumption". When you land to company's own web page it is too many times annual report in the web sometimes including an online store. Others have as well so should we. Zero points from interactivity and highlighting root cause for poor Facebook content.
Internet should and was suppose to start interactive two-way relationship with customers. But maybe it is against human nature? Think about F2F normal discussions we have with peers and friends. Many of us in the conversations do not pay attention (=listen) what someone is about to say because we are preparing our own opinion. We love to talk about ourselves and we tend to memorize discussions where we have filled the airtime. BUT we also remember those because someone was humble and intelligent enough to listen and build ideas on top on our own thoughts and ideas.
Social media is imitating (at least trying to) our offline behavior, therefore in communities based on friendships or shared interests it has great opportunities. Unfortunately in corporate world where normal approach is inside-out "we are telling and want you to do this" we fall into a situation where social media is against human nature (and company objectives driving our behavior).
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Tunnel vision and the hat syndrome
"Online services and stores are so gone & history, long live the social media". "You have to understand that mobile internet is so different than "PC internet"". "We are professionals in branded consumer goods digital campaigns". "Digital B2B marketing is so different from B2C digital marketing". "CRM is so old dated when you can have all the possibilities of social media". "Your company does not have competence from our industry's digital strategies".
Oh man where does all this wisdom come from. Who creates all these silos? Who sets these "facts"? What kind of background you need to have to believe all these as facts? How much time you need to spend in one function? Or industry? Or particular company culture? Or listening to "gurus"?
Let's take another view. Susanne is 32 year old woman with two children and she is working as a sourcing manager in company XYZ. Susanne is a normal human being so she reads newspapers, buys consumer goods & groceries, spends free time and acquires information from various sources both for work and household purposes. Susanne has a mobile phone and a laptop. Basically she is like all of us with her habits, thoughts and behavior.
If we take as granted all the beliefs above then Susanne is a different person or driven by totally different motivations while she is using her mobile phone vs. laptop, reading newspaper's online version vs. buying from apparel brand's online store, her analyzed behavior at department store's customer database is far from her social media analyzed habits, she is always 100 % analytical while working but driven by emotions at her free time, she is tired of using any online service when social media spaces are available. She adjusts herself to behave differently with every industry, every gadget, with everything. Susanne has 22 different personalities.
Sounds out of space but that is how many companies see her - or actually do not see her at all. Instead of we are driven by tunnel visions of different gadgets, industry competencies, different technologies, trendy hypes, company's internal structures & power games and one idea gurus.
Therefore we need to wear hats. Someone cannot be a professional of mobile and PC internet because it is different technology. Someone cannot be a professional of consumer (digital) services because it requires industry competence to develop those. Someone cannot be a professional of CRM and social media because different emerging time of hype and again technology. So you are given a hat to wear how to describe you - named function's one subgroup professional and/or professional in one named industry. Customer just cannot be the starting point, it just cannot because it would ruin too many beliefs and "facts".
Still we have Susanne, Mary, George, Ian and thousands and millions others.
Oh man where does all this wisdom come from. Who creates all these silos? Who sets these "facts"? What kind of background you need to have to believe all these as facts? How much time you need to spend in one function? Or industry? Or particular company culture? Or listening to "gurus"?
Let's take another view. Susanne is 32 year old woman with two children and she is working as a sourcing manager in company XYZ. Susanne is a normal human being so she reads newspapers, buys consumer goods & groceries, spends free time and acquires information from various sources both for work and household purposes. Susanne has a mobile phone and a laptop. Basically she is like all of us with her habits, thoughts and behavior.
If we take as granted all the beliefs above then Susanne is a different person or driven by totally different motivations while she is using her mobile phone vs. laptop, reading newspaper's online version vs. buying from apparel brand's online store, her analyzed behavior at department store's customer database is far from her social media analyzed habits, she is always 100 % analytical while working but driven by emotions at her free time, she is tired of using any online service when social media spaces are available. She adjusts herself to behave differently with every industry, every gadget, with everything. Susanne has 22 different personalities.
Sounds out of space but that is how many companies see her - or actually do not see her at all. Instead of we are driven by tunnel visions of different gadgets, industry competencies, different technologies, trendy hypes, company's internal structures & power games and one idea gurus.
Therefore we need to wear hats. Someone cannot be a professional of mobile and PC internet because it is different technology. Someone cannot be a professional of consumer (digital) services because it requires industry competence to develop those. Someone cannot be a professional of CRM and social media because different emerging time of hype and again technology. So you are given a hat to wear how to describe you - named function's one subgroup professional and/or professional in one named industry. Customer just cannot be the starting point, it just cannot because it would ruin too many beliefs and "facts".
Still we have Susanne, Mary, George, Ian and thousands and millions others.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Marketing functions - blast from the past
This is one of my favorite topics - trying to figure out what is really the purpose of a marketing function and competencies those function hold in different companies. What if your company's marketing function were banned to buy any advertising stuff from ad agencies for six months period of time? What would these guys do then and how would they spend their days?
Traditional marketing functions are actually marketing communications functions and to be precise advertising & media sourcing functions. Majority of marcom function's time is spent in buying communication stuff from ad agencies, media space, communication from communications agencies and research from research agencies (to research impact of communications). Their focus is not in creating more business or better business but in most of the cases to buy from and plan with agencies communication initiatives and campaigns. One could argue that these two equal but another could argue that their core competence is to be professional buyers of advertising.
Internet has changed many things and it has changed landscape of marketing as well. Problem for traditional marketing function (as traditional function is defined above) with internet is that their focus and competencies have been in one way communications "we tell you who we are and how excellent our products are". Internet is a business and customer interaction platform. Internet is about having relevant value to customers, passion to interact - learn, listen, challenge, co-create with customers, digitize business & customer's processes, integrate own processes with customer's processes and many many other things with the main idea of being outside-in driven. All this applies to both B2C and B2B. Traditional marketing functions unfortunately are inside-out driven and they do not even acknowledge this. Fortunately for these guys internet has SEO/SEM activities which follows same working pattern as traditional campaigning added with few technical skills - no need to interact with customers.
Yes I know what someone might say - In many organizations only task given to marketing function is to communicate = blast leaflets, brochures, emails, print ads etc. with the idea that it will support sales. For this I am not sure whom to blame - incompetent sales director or incompetent marketing director or MD/CEO or all of them. Many engineering driven companies fall into this trap especially those with limited resources. On the other hand six month rule would save money for something else.
Yes I know as well that many might say - 6 months... It would destroy our brand awareness and value. Get real especially in B2B space. For example what is the actual lost of dropping out a few print ads in professional magazines - how many lost deals or measurable tangible drop in awareness? How about six months in B2C telecom operator business? Telcos are for sure active advertisers at least in Finland but I am not so sure about the impact and how the money should be spent. Problems they have in delivering hygiene level exceeding broadband service or running a smooth customer service should have higher priority than ads.
So how would you spend your six months? Even better - if head of marketing function is reporting to you what would you ask them to do during this time period?
PS. I have had several marketing roles in quite a few companies & roles where one of my responsibility area has been marketing
Traditional marketing functions are actually marketing communications functions and to be precise advertising & media sourcing functions. Majority of marcom function's time is spent in buying communication stuff from ad agencies, media space, communication from communications agencies and research from research agencies (to research impact of communications). Their focus is not in creating more business or better business but in most of the cases to buy from and plan with agencies communication initiatives and campaigns. One could argue that these two equal but another could argue that their core competence is to be professional buyers of advertising.
Internet has changed many things and it has changed landscape of marketing as well. Problem for traditional marketing function (as traditional function is defined above) with internet is that their focus and competencies have been in one way communications "we tell you who we are and how excellent our products are". Internet is a business and customer interaction platform. Internet is about having relevant value to customers, passion to interact - learn, listen, challenge, co-create with customers, digitize business & customer's processes, integrate own processes with customer's processes and many many other things with the main idea of being outside-in driven. All this applies to both B2C and B2B. Traditional marketing functions unfortunately are inside-out driven and they do not even acknowledge this. Fortunately for these guys internet has SEO/SEM activities which follows same working pattern as traditional campaigning added with few technical skills - no need to interact with customers.
Yes I know what someone might say - In many organizations only task given to marketing function is to communicate = blast leaflets, brochures, emails, print ads etc. with the idea that it will support sales. For this I am not sure whom to blame - incompetent sales director or incompetent marketing director or MD/CEO or all of them. Many engineering driven companies fall into this trap especially those with limited resources. On the other hand six month rule would save money for something else.
Yes I know as well that many might say - 6 months... It would destroy our brand awareness and value. Get real especially in B2B space. For example what is the actual lost of dropping out a few print ads in professional magazines - how many lost deals or measurable tangible drop in awareness? How about six months in B2C telecom operator business? Telcos are for sure active advertisers at least in Finland but I am not so sure about the impact and how the money should be spent. Problems they have in delivering hygiene level exceeding broadband service or running a smooth customer service should have higher priority than ads.
So how would you spend your six months? Even better - if head of marketing function is reporting to you what would you ask them to do during this time period?
PS. I have had several marketing roles in quite a few companies & roles where one of my responsibility area has been marketing
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