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October 4, 2007
Steven Van Yoder posted an excellent summary of how Cisco embeds thought leadership marketing into its culture and plays off this philosophy as its marketing mainstay.
Most companies give lipservice to TLM the same way that few marketers understand the fundamentals of marketing in that the 'product focus' mentality of the twenties is dead and that we're still very much in the era of 'market focus'.
Therein lies the inherent power of Thought Leadership Marketing - It's market focused and puts the needs of the market first. More to the point, it puts the credibility, reputation and growth of the company truly in the hands of the customers. Thought Leadership is bestowed upon a company by its customers - it cannot be created in a vacuum without an intuitive revervence for the market or markets served.
Specific to Cisco, and others that use Thought Leadership Marketing, there are a few keys that make TLM what it is:
- Leadership demands that every executive establish and nurture his or her own reputation for thought leadership
- Pursue blogging, public speaking, and writing articles
- Become an industry purveyor of executive thought leadership
- Align your website with with links to research reports, papers, podcasts, interviews and other content from around the industry which supports and furthers your TLM position
- Publish newseltters for customer segments and the industry in general
- Host thought leadership events that bring together academia, industry, goverment and customers to address very specific topics related to your business and industry
That is not a be-all end all list to be sure, but it's a heck of a start on your Thought Leadership Marketing strategy.
October 3, 2007
As many a marketing manager and media planner turns their focus to 2008 (in fact, I'm better that a fair number of you have already turned in some preliminary budget numbers for '08, if not your entire budget and marketing plan) we're all challenged with where we're going to allocate dollars for our anticipated returns and ROI.
An intriguing post over at Get Rich Slowly and a story on NPR about David Swensen, who, for the past 21 years been Yale University’s investment portfolio manager, garnering an average 16 percent annual return! This is astonishing in that most of us are fortunate to sneak by with an average 7 percent across our investment and retirement stockpiles.
What's more interesting is the connection that's made in the blog post between what David feels is a intuitively balanced portfolio and the types of index funds (ETF - Exchange Traded Funds) that the everyman (or woman) could safely invest in and secure a comfortable return.
The chart below represents Swensena's basic formula for creating an investment portfolio likely to give you good returns while still managing risk: (via Get Rich Slowly)
This got me to thinking, what's your marketing portfolio look like? When you look at how Swensen's investment percentages break down with 20% in Real Estate and another 5% in Emerging Markets, I can't help but think that there are parallels in our marketing portfolio to things like brand building and awareness (long-term, stability investments) and new media and social media (emerging markets, high risk, potential for high return) and the list goes on..
ACTION ITEM: What's your marketing portfolio look like? Do you have enough invested in stable, slow growth areas like branding and awareness building for the long term or have your been bit by the latest marketing trend bug and shifted your investments into higher-risk marketing vehicles? Are you investing enough in customer retention, referral and reactivation like we invest in government bonds to renew our country or have those areas fallen out of favor because of their seemingly modest returns?
Take another look at your marketing portfolio before the ink dries on next year's budget!
October 3, 2007
Thanks again to all of your who were in New York on the 20th! Due, in large part, to the super-positive feedback that we received from the event, Toby, Bill and I will be doing a total of six events, with the three in 2008 as the latest additions to the mix.
But, before we get to the dates, don't take our word for it, look at what one of the attendees from New York had to say:
I wanted to thank you, Toby, Bill and Dana for a fabulous conference. It was truly the most valuable professional development conference I have ever attended. I really appreciated the thoughtful presentations, specific case studies and valuable insights that all the presentors had to share. And the small group setting really allowed for dynamic and interactive discussion that made it possible to apply the learnings to your own work.Please keep me on the list for any future web 2.0 professional development conferences that you give, and similarly I hope that Toby, Bill and Dana will keep me in mind if they are ever doing conferences (especially in the washington, dc area).
Thanks to everybody,
Kim Callinan
Senior Vice President
- Friday, October 26th in Chicago
- Friday, November 9th in Las Vegas
- Friday, January 11th in Miami
- Friday, February 22nd in San Diego
- Friday, March 28th in Chicago
You can learn more about Beyond Marketing 2.0: Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Marketing Campaign Results by visiting the AMA website. Here's a brief rundown of the event agenda.
7:30 ... 8:15 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:15 ... 8:30 a.m. Setting the Stage
8:30 ... 9:00 a.m. Social Media Defined
9:00 ... 10:00 a.m. The State of the Industry: Where Do You Stand?
10:00 ... 10:15 a.m. Break
10:15 ... 11:15 a.m. The Social Media Landscape
11:15 ... 12:15 p.m. RSS, Widgets and Social Syndication
12:15 ... 1:15 p.m. Lunch
1:15 ... 2:30 p.m. How Do We Measure This Thing? Social Media Metrics & ROI
2:30 ... 2:45 p.m. Break
2:45 ... 3:45 p.m. The Social Media Marketing Plan & Social Media Process
3:45 ... 4:45 Marketing Makeover: Applying Social Media in Two Parts
After several hours of exploring the ins and outs of Social Media and Web 2.0, now it's time to put our education into action!
Finally, we'll conduct a series of 'marketing makeovers' with willing participating companies in the audience. We'll dive deep into specific, emerging or hypothetical marketing challenges where Social Media tools and tactics will provide a competitive marketing edge, illustrating precisely how the Social Media tools discussed throughout the day can be applied to your individual marketing challenge.
October 1, 2007
Just claiming the blog...again...
September 22, 2007
During group speaking engagements like our most recent "Beyond Marketing 2.0" event in New York on Friday with Toby and Bill, I usually pass around my trusty Keyspan presentation remote, recommended by Ben McConnell back in 2004/5 (thanks Ben, this this has been a lifesaver!)
Did I mention that I'm also selling a well used and cared for Keyspan presentation remote? I'm going to need that cash to pay for my newest desire, a Logitech Cordless Presenter! Precipitated in large part by the 'timer' feature that Flitter pointed out on his shiny new Logitech 2.4 GHz Cordless Presenter. In spite of that great timer feature, we still managed to run over a bit on some sessions, but wow, what a great remote!
Thanks Bill. I'll be picking this up soon! ...as soon as my Keyspan sells on eBay!
September 20, 2007
Hi folks, Toby, Bill and I are in New York today at the Coleman center discussing social media and all sorts of fun things.
We've been capturing the 'questions to the answers' via link blog over here:
July 26, 2007
I'm in the middle of a great article in E-Content Magazine (sorry, don't see it online yet) and caught an interesting perspective from Russel Holliman, the CEO of Podcast Ready. This idea, which I call Content Consumption Continuity involves the many types of media that all of us use to consume content & information. At the end of the day, there needs to be some continuity across the multiple media devices through which we can access content & types of content. As Russell puts it:
"In time, I'll be able to download an article to look at on my television, zap it to my phone, listen to it in my car, and then read it on my Sony Reader while I'm in the airport."
Well said. Welcome to the age of Content Consumption Continuity!