Alberta Business Marketing

Smart b-to-b organizations start planning and budgeting well in advance of a new fiscal year. Part of the process requires evaluating strategies and tactics that have been employed during the past year, then deciding which to keep and which to replace. SiriusDecisions has identified key trends that will impact the b-to-b communications function in 2011.

1. Waterfall-Long Social Media: Many b-to-b organizations have experience using social media to monitor their brand, customer perception and sentiment; some are even trying to use it to seed demand creation. This isn’t enough; communications executives now must take a waterfall-length social media perspective. Recently, we outlined five waterfall-related task families that marketing can impact: seed, create, enable, accelerate and nurture. Adding social media into the tactic and offer delivery mix can help create new demand. On the enablement side, leveraging a social platform to build an internal community to facilitate collaboration and best practices sharing within direct and indirect sales channels can help drive incremental sales productivity. Finally, understanding the social preferences of prospects provides the knowledge to apply appropriate social efforts to the nurturing process.

2. The Communications Center: Similar to the value a demand center can provide, a communications center can pay significant dividends if created. Particularly when it comes to global communications, a centralized function can create leveraged programs for retaining key branding and messaging elements while enabling local customization based on defined guidelines. In addition, the approach allows companies to harness key expertise distributed throughout the communications organization and dynamically allocate it as needed, depending on the corporate initiative (e.g. new product launch or merger/acquisition).

3. Link to Demand: While we would like nothing more than not having this as a key issue for 2011, the reality remains that too few organizations – not even 40 percent according to our most recent surveying – tightly link their communications and demand creation efforts. We’ve written extensively on the topic that linking to demand is much more desirable that trying to link to revenue, and that the most effective measurements of this linkage should be results-oriented rather than activity-driven. More traditional communications roles (e.g. public relations, analyst relations) often have the perception that seeding or supporting demand creation is not their job; until the objectives that these roles are judged are changed, there is little reason for behavior to change.

A key theme for communications functions in 2011 will be the ability to deliver impact across the demand waterfall, rather than just at its top. However, this can be a thorny topic for professionals in more traditional roles who have become accustomed to only having to demonstrate activity levels. In addition, the ubiquitous nature of social media means it’s no longer a luxury, but rather an invaluable tool that every marketer can leverage. Those who embrace these two realities will be better positioned to not only build the proper linkages within their organizations; they will have a much better chance to prove their contribution.

Ally Motz

Posted in B2B | | Comments Off

How many of the 2010 mayoral candidates have you met so far?

You’re in the majority if you said none.

Rest assured, candidates are trying their best to fix that. At least, a few are.

With the summer festival season ending this weekend, the biggest opportunity for candidates to meet you is officially ending, too.

Kent Hehr (with his balloons for the kids) and Naheed Nenshi (with his bright purple signs and t-shirts) were likely the busiest during the season, attending all the major festivals. Wayne Stewart’s volunteers were out in full force handing out brochures, while Bob Hawkesworth was out at some festivals doing the same.

Barb Higgins, Paul Hughes and Ric McIver weren’t big into having a booth and instead chose to fly under the radar by walking the street talking to people they bumped into. (McIver did have a booth at Kensington’s Sun and Salsa, but packed up and left early.)

Craig Burrows chose a different tactic with his “100 communities in 100 days” RV. Many know him only from seeing that big blue and yellow camper.

But those heady days of summer are behind us. Candidates have had their moment in the sun — literally. If they haven’t got a full head of steam by now, it will be a struggle to win the race.

They’ll still try to get your attention by attending events, mostly forums and debates. But this format doesn’t provide much time for one-on-one interaction.

They’ll spend money on impersonal computerized phone calls. They’ll spend time slowly going door-to-door in your neighbourhood or having volunteers make equally time-consuming personal calls. They’ll figure out that Twitter and Facebook really are good places to have conversations with Calgarians.

But most of all, they’ll realize the best opportunities to meet us face to face are gone. And they’ll have to wrestle with whether they have proven they know how to listen to Calgarians when it’s most convenient.

Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/613438–sun-setting-on-face-to-face-time

Share/Save

Tags: Calgary, Metro Column, Politics
Posted in Marketing | | Comments Off

This rocks.
If you are still not using Google services to enhance the management of your tourism business, consider getting on board the G-train.
I’m delivering a training program in the fall that will be focused on helping tourism businesses streamline their CRM processes using the plethora of free tools on the Web, many that Google provides.

As a Gmail user, I’m already addicted to Google Calendars, Tasks and Documents – especially the free Google Forms tool which makes tracking inquiries and leads amazingly simple, but now, we can make free phone calls fromour computer right in our email client!

It’s as easy as clicking call phone from my google chat window and I’m making calls using my computer speaker and headset or built in computer microphone.

Watch out Skype.
I’m seriously thinking of dumping our expense for outgoing phone calls from the telephone and moving exclusively to Google calls within Gmail (free-for-now across North America and seriously cheap around the world).

Since the major telcos have been ditching their telephone booths, watch for someone like Google to come into your community and offer free services to fill the void.   For the 20% of North Americans who don’t carry a cell phone or for travelers in airports who don’t want to pony up the $2 bucks a minute to talk to folks overseas while they are traveling.

HECK, consider setting up a computer in your lobby and set it up with a Google account to provide free North American phone calls for your guests!  Now that’s something your ideal guest could really appreciate!

Be sure to hang a sign that says – “Tell your family and friends you are calling for free from – ‘YOUR Business Name’ “.

In the process, you might recruit a few new fans.

Tags: free phone calls, free web marketing stuff, google, google news
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

In my third of four posts about which channels work best to reach and engage influencers, I take a look at the new kid on the block: social media.

Marketers are sometimes torn between doing what has worked most effectively in the past and testing out new technologies and channels that have the potential to be real game-changers in the future.

The bright shiny object of the last few years is, of course, social media, a channel that’s still not completely understood but that has, in theory, the potential to radically change the way we market.

Why? Well, to start with, based on our research, influencers are spending 7 hours per week in the US and 9 in Canada on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and blogs. That’s already impressive but when you add to that the finding that influencers are connected, on average, to 108 (US) and 137 (Canada) people in their own social media network, that’s something that gets the attention of marketers – as it should.

While social media shares ease of use with the email channel, it’s this community or network that may hold the key to the channel’s true potential. These individuals have chosen to be connected based on an affinity for a particular community, and are actively engaged with others in it and outside that community too.

Bill McCloskey at ClickZ offers some fascinating examples about the potential power of social media, including this one:

“…look at Marvel Comics, which is one of the top performing ‘advertisers’ in the Twitter space. As of right now, Marvel has around 44,000 followers [63,000+ as I write this post]. But over the last few weeks, it sent out 151 Twitter offers. But more than that: 246 ‘influencers’ have directly rebroadcast that message to their followers. Add it all up and Marvel has exposed its offer to over 66 million eyeballs over the past few weeks!”

Those are some impressive numbers and just a hint of the potential opportunities social media offers marketers. However we do need to distinguish the difference between influencers: some will talk; others will pass along information (as per above) and of utmost value are those that truly influence others – by eliciting action. So whether on social media sites or via email or on the phone, you must understand what you are trying to achieve and ensure that you have designed appropriately.

One more thing bares repeating from my last two posts: even if some channels are better than others to reach particular consumers in particular ways, the fact is these channels work best for marketers when they work together.

For instance, email messages that offer a social-sharing option (like Twitter and Facebook) generate a 30% higher click-through rate than emails without it, according to a new study by email marketing company Get Response. And if the email includes three or more social-sharing options, that click-through rate jumps to 55%.

The bottom line? Social media offers a unique and advantageous opportunity to find, reach, engage and have a continuous dialogue with individuals – both within their social media communities and in their network at large. Just needs to be done right!

In the fourth and final part of this series, I’ll blog about the true answer to the question – which channel is most effective at finding, reaching, engaging and motivating influencers?

Gillian MacPherson

Tags: Branding, Customer Experience, Direct Marketing, Integration, PR, Research, social media, Strategy
Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Long-time telecom foes face off over broadcast competition issues By Paul Marck Having long covered the telecom industry in Alberta, it has been a source of endless fascination and bloodsport to watch the escalating corporate buntoss between Western corporate titans Telus and Shaw. (Let me say at the outset that I am a long-time customer of both companies [...]

Tags: BizBeat - Editor's Blog, CanWest, CRTC, Global, Konrad von Finckenstein, Shaw, Telus
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off