Alberta Business Marketing

Word of mouth is likely the oldest form of advertising and traditionally one that has been nearly impossible to target and measure. But that is changing, and changing quickly. In addition to web analytics and third party audience measurement data, there is an increasing wealth of information available for organizations to measure and mine. Consumer feedback sites, social networks, blogs as well as on-site tools all provide a wealth of information that companies can use for product and service improvement. With these opportunities come new challenges, as success is a measure of more than just numbers and percentages.

The eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit (April 6 – 9) is a good place to go to really understand how far eMetrics has come. One of the panel presentations, that includes Lisa Lloyd of Microsoft (who will also be wearing her CMA hat) will address this very issue.

On a related panel, named Predictive Analytics and Digital Marketing - Paul Tyndall of RBC (also wearing his CMA hat), will be discussing how RBC and other marketers are utilizing predictive modeling in the online space.

Full disclosure – CMA is one of the association sponsors of the Summit.

.... if you are a member of CMA, you can save an additional 15% off the regular attendee rate by using discount code CMAPARTNER15 when registering for the conference.

Elizabeth Harvey, Manager of Councils and Self Regulatory Programs, CMA

Tags: Databases / Analytics, Digital
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I recently joined a LinkedIn discussion group called Thought Leadership Salon, where the latest discussion focused on the definition of Thought Leadership Marketing (TLM).

The discussion linked to a WebWire article written by Gartner (an information technology research company). Gartner defines TLM as: the giving — for free or at a nominal charge — of information or advice that a client will value so as to create awareness of the outcome that a company’s product or service can deliver, in order to position and differentiate that offering and stimulate demand for it.

Their VP elaborated: "The principle of TLM is simple enough: You give away a little valuable intellectual property to establish your potential usefulness to the client, in the expectation that the client will use your expertise and services. Its essence is to show, rather than tell what a company can do, and to do so in a way that positions and differentiates that company’s offering for the chosen target audience".

The article went on to give some interesting B2B examples, and of course, to link to their own thought leadership, a Gartner report called "Marketing Essentials: How to Use Thought Leadership Marketing for IT Services Providers".

While I am not sure that the definition above is not a bit too narrow (I would argue that thought leadership is about more than sharing whitepapers, just like PR is about more than press releases), I am certainly interested that thought leadership is being considered an “organized discipline” of marketing.

Are your B2B marketing departments consciously using TLM in your marketing plans?

Elizabeth Harvey, Manager of Councils and Self Regulatory Programs at Canadian Marketing Association

Tags: Strategy
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

In many organizations, the reality is that sales and marketing relationships can be strained. In contrast, research shows that organizations that have embraced an integrated approach vastly outperform those that have not.

In conjucntion with the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA), and SiriusDecisions, we (CMA) are examing what successful integration looks like through an online survey with the B2B community.

If you role is sales or marketing, weigh in and provide your persepctive -- take the survey now!

Survey closes on Friday - Feb. 5th.

Elizabeth Harvey

Tags: Research
Posted in B2B | | Comments Off

As manager of a number of CMA’s Marketing Councils, I am surprised when I am asked – more frequently than you’d think, “Why does the CMA have a Contact Centre Council? What do contact centres have to do with marketing?” I can tell you that members of the Contact Centre Council see themselves as marketers – and this mindset likely correlates to an organization’s bottom line.

The Contact Centre Council collaborated on an article in the most recent edition of Contact Management, and in the magazine’s editorial, Ron Glen quotes a speech by Diane Francis that I thought was bang on. She said “The industry can have the smartest advertising campaign the world has ever known, but if the people answering the phone turn the public off and cost you customers it is all for not. To think that brand management stops with billboards, newspaper ad, TV commercials... is crazy.”

I’m not sure why contact centres are often overlooked as marketing tools. How many Twitter posts have you seen complaining about a call centre experience ending with a declaration that they are switching suppliers or will never do business with that company again? On the flip side, have you ever upgraded your spend as a result of a great call centre experience? I certainly have.

I wonder how people question that a corporate function with implications to brand, customer service and relationship building, and up-selling and cross selling, does not have to do with marketing. If marketing departments are embracing the use of social media tools, why is there question as to the marketing value of a live, relationship building touch point with consumers? Am I wrong?

Perhaps you can help me: where does your contact centre fit within your organizational structure – in the marketing department, or is it an operational function? Does this affect how your organization sees call centres as marketing tools?

Tags: Contact Centre
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

I was forwarded an article today from the BBC detailing some Harvard research titled Twitter hype punctured by study.

As detailed in the article, the Harvard data says very, very few people tweet and very, very few people listen consistently.

The research concludes that despite the hype, Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network. That Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends.

The BBC posted a question I thought would be interesting to discuss here: Do you think that micro-blogging will play a big part in the future of the web? If so, are marketers going to use and allocate budget to this in the future? Is it happening now?

Tags: social media
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