ENGAGING MARKETING MINDS
INSIDE
BLENDING DATA WITH EXPERIENCE
VOL. 6, ISSUE 5, FALL 2016
THE VALUE OF PERSONALIZED CONTENTFALL 2016
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TODAY!
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SHAWMUT IS COMMITTED TO GIVING BACK AND WE WANT YOU TO JOIN US! This year we’ve partnered with Raw Art Works (RAW) to help support the next generation of our industry. Located in Lynn, MA, RAW uses the power of art to inspire thousands of young artists transform their lives. They offer a variety of programs including visual arts, a print shop, film school, leadership development, and teen employment.
The students at RAW are the future of our industry. They are bright, talented artists many of whom go on to become marketers, designers, and print professionals. Visit ignitecreativity.today to join the cause and Shawmut will donate $5 to RAW. Share it on social and we’ll double that. And if you place an order with Shawmut by the end of the quarter we’ll donate 5% of the proceeds back to RAW.
Get Involved at ignitecreativity.today
Up Front Publisher’s Letter
The
WRONG QUESTION hange has been the topic of conversation within the business community for decades. In May 2005, the Harvard Business Review cited the need for a radical departure from traditional thinking. According to the article, "Your Company's Secret Change Agent," while isolated success strategies can be brought into the mainstream, doing so requires a departure from the notions of benchmarking and best practices that we are all too familiar with. The key is to engage the members of the community you want to change in the process of discovery and make them the evangelists of their own conversion experience. NO MATTER WHAT The ideas for creating change THE SOLUTION IS are pretty sound. Involving the FOR CHANGE, THE people you want to change in the THING THAT process of leading change is brilliant. However, we collectively still ULTIMATELY HOLDS lament the willingness to change US BACK IS BELIEF OR what exists within our worlds. LACK THEREOF. So, what gives? Maybe we're just asking the wrong questions. For example, instead of asking "How do I get this done?" or "How can I validate my work?" we should ask, "What is holding us back from opportunity?" No matter what the solution is for change, the thing that ultimately holds us back is belief or lack thereof. In other words, maybe there is a feeling that once change is implemented we will be destroyed in some way. Belief can go a long way – as long as it's true. We must all have faith that sticking our collective necks out is a good thing. We must believe that when we choose to do the unconBrought to you by: Shawmut Communications Group Shawmut Communications Group is proud to bring you Tactics, a bimonthly industry publication created by and for marketing minds. Founded in 1951—and now in its third generation of family ownership— Shawmut Communications Group provides an array of marketing, print, mail and fulfillment services to meet the needs of clients across all industries. With decades of experience, the Shawmut team is committed to helping clients market with relevance and communicate with excellence. Visit www.shawmutdelivers.com or call 978.762.7500 to learn more.
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ventional and the nontraditional, we will end up stronger and more educated. And we must feel confident that we can become the kind of people who not only make change, but change things for the better. We have faith that this issue will change some thinking. In our cover story, "Out of Sight, Out of Mind," we talk about the importance of staying in front of your clients and the difficulty in executing that plan. In our second feature, "Mixology," we highlight the fact that sincerity and authenticity are the key ideas to market-based thinking. Warm regards,
MICHAEL PELUSO
In This Issue 01 Publisher’s letter The wrong question 02 The Inbox 04 Out of sight, Out of mind Why you need toget to know your customers personally 08 Mixology Marketing blends data with experience 13 One size does not fit all Survey shows the value of personalized content
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News | Updates | Statistics
The Inbox
ROOM TO GROW When it comes to content marketing strategies, you would think that by now everybody would be on board. Think again. According to Curata’s “2016 Content Marketing Staffing and Tactics Barometer,” the results show that companies admit to having room for improvement.
48%
Are not curating their content
42% Intend on increasing their content marketing staff levels
37% Never complete a content audit
29% Reuse and repurpose content
Book Rec The Inevitable:
Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future By Kevin Kelly
Have you ever thought how cool it would be to have a road map to the future? In "The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future," Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic game plan for the future by shining a spotlight on the coming changes in our lives. This much we know: Much of what will happen in the next 30 years is inevitable, driven by technological trends like virtual reality and artificial intelligence that are already in motion. In "The Inevitable," Kelly shows how these trends continue to completely revolutionize the way we buy,
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work, learn and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, Kelly says it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. "The Inevitable" is an indispensable blueprint to the technological, cultural and societal changes on the horizon. It's the resource you may need in order to answer all the questions you have for the long ride ahead.
READY TO STAND OUT AT YOUR NEXT TRADE SHOW? Go beyond traditional marketing collateral for your attendee bag stuffer or pre-show mailer. Include a dimensional marketing piece that really stands out and drives attendees to visit your booth. Each year OBP Medical exhibits at The Plastic Surgery Meeting which brings together more than 3,000 of the best and brightest surgeons across the globe. This fall they saw a 300% increase in traffic to their booth as a result of a very unique attendee bag stuffer—a ONETRAC sample box.
They partnered with Shawmut to create a custom branded box that fit their unique product shape. The sample box not only stood out among other marketing materials in the bag, it gave surgeons a chance to see and hold OBP’s retractor before they even hit the trade show floor. This strategy was a great way to spark interest and give OBP a leg up on the competition.
300% increase in booth traffic 200 qualified leads 6% response rate “Most people who stopped at our booth referenced the sample box they received in their welcome bag. We are confident that this trade show was a success because our leads quadrupled from one year to the next. The ONETRAC sample box designed and produced by Shawmut was a contributing factor to this success.” – Kelly Ottaviano, Marketing Associate, OBP Medical FALL 2016
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BY JAMAR LASTER
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y her own admission, Liz Miller flies a “ridiculous” number of miles with American Airlines. As senior VP of marketing for the CMO Council, she presents marketingfocused research findings at global conferences and thought-leadership events and has a travel schedule that rivals the quintessential jetsetter. Not surprisingly, Miller enjoys “elite” status as an American Airlines AAdvantage Executive Platinum member. As the name implies, she’s set apart from the airline’s other customers, not only in travel perks and rewards, but also the types of marketing materials – and accompanying content – she receives. Those perks include quarterly updates with references to business perks and features of the American Airlines executive lounge; relaxing imagery of vacation spots in far-away places; and targeted ads on a specific country to which she frequently travels on international business.
Translation: The airline knows she’s not the typical traveler, so it personalizes the message she receives.
“It’s about making that intense relevance, because relevance drives relationships.” – Liz Miller, Senior VP of Marketing, CMO Council
By contrast, Miller’s husband, also an AAdvantage program member – not of the Executive Platinum status, mind you – receives marketing materials, too. But they feature a distinct difference in content, a subtle nuance that has caught Miller’s eye. “When he gets his [American Airlines marketing materials], the content, images and promotions for destinations usually mirror what you can find on their website,” Miller says. “If they’re opening up a new route to Auckland, the cover of his brochure will be centered on Auckland. His materials will generally feature content about what they have to offer the mass populace of their customers.” The amount of personalization contained in the airline’s communication with her leads to a point of differentiation that Miller says makes the content more appealing. “They’re talking to me about things I may need in my travel life that are very different from my husband,” she says. “Every single piece of communication, while it’s content that can be found someplace else, is highly relevant to me. And it’s probably also highly relevant to executive platinum flyers because we all tend to have the same behavior.”
The lesson in this example for marketers is simple: In a day and age where clients will only buy from those they trust and from those with whom they have relationships, one of the best ways to establish both of these key components is to appeal to one of their basic needs: personalized communication.
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CRACKING THE INNER CIRCLE In many situations, gaining your customers’ trust requires being part of an inner circle that sometimes can be difficult to access. In a business-to-business context, one of the best ways to begin breaking down any barriers to entry is to provide valuable, quality content that gives the customer an advantage in their market, says Bill Corbett Jr., president of Corbett Public Relations Inc., a Long Island, N.Y.-based public relations and marketing firm. “If you know what their challenges are, share with them articles, videos and other materials that will help them overcome challenges, and you will build trust,” Corbett says. “This allows for opportunities to develop and for relationships to grow.” Corbett, a former adjunct professor at Iona College and occasional guest lecturer at other institutions, also touts personal communication as a way to crack the proverbial walls some actual or prospective customers can erect. Ironically, he says technology – likely the very culprit in the establishment of these barriers – can be helpful in facilitating the communication that can help marketers break through. “LinkedIn, for example, offers many ways to engage in personal conversations,” Corbett says. “The key here is listening to the specific client or type of client. If you know what they are looking for or what they need, you will have a better opportunity to reach them and provide what they are looking for. Don’t hard sell; however, this does not mean don’t communicate.” Technology, in some ways, may have gotten a bad rap in this entire scenario. “It’s not the technology that’s the problem,” Miller says, “it’s the overwhelming flood of irrelevant messages that we keep sending people and an absolute lack of connected content.” Such content not only has to be connected to a unified message, but it also must contain a thread connecting it across channels, Miller says. “That level of connection, where we’re actually connecting all the dots between message and channel, has to also connect to something that is highly relevant to our customers.”
In many situations, gaining your customers’ trust requires being part of an inner circle that sometimes can be difficult to access. TALK IN THEIR TERMS “Female between ages 22 and 34.” “College graduate.” “Mother with at least one child.” “Household income between $100,000 and $125,000.” It’s easy for marketers to think in demographic terms; after all, the analytics portion of the job almost mandates doing so. But referring to customers in such terms also accentuates the problem of relating on a personal level with customers. It’s best to start by gaining a deeper understanding of your customer, then communicating with them in familiar terms so that they aren’t reintroducing themselves at each engagement. “No one introduces themselves as, ‘Hi, I’m a woman between the age of 22 and 34. I come from the Midwest and my socioeconomic background is…,’” Miller says. “But that’s how we talk about our customers,
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ways to focus on your client Get “in the dirt” with them. Go to their offices or operations and observe what they do. Talk with executives, staff, clients and partners. Attend events that they host. “Get to know them on a personal level, and see what they do and how they do it,” says Bill Corbett Jr., president of Corbett Public Relations Inc. Mold products and services to meet customer needs. Using customer insight and intelligence, deliver value based on customer experiences that really address their needs and desires, says Liz Miller, senior VP of marketing for the CMO Council.
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Talk to them across channels. The social media channel is important for getting acquainted with your client, Miller says, but remember that you’re dealing with today’s Omni-channel customer. “Social media is important, but so is the live feedback that comes from websites or the voice that comes from customer-service channels, and so is sales,” she says. Get to know their industries and markets. Look at competitors and share your relevant findings, Corbett says. “This is proactive and often helpful in developing marketing strategies or finding opportunities.” Have a plan for tracking and working with clients. This is particularly important if you are a service provider. Create a calendar with themes, action items, events and activities, all the while communicating regularly and setting goals, Corbett says. “All parties must agree to the plan and system for assessing successes and achievements.”
then we break it down into product categories, why they are buying and their demographics. If you were to ask what that woman is buying, she would say, ‘I’m buying back-to-school products because my kids need them for school, but they need paper in packs of four, so why do you sell packs of three?’ If we can start shifting how we think about customers and why they do business with us, and talk to them the way they want to talk to us, it shifts the relationship.” Corbett says another way to learn how to talk to clients is not to talk about business. “Find out what an individual is interested in and talk with them about this and get to know them,” he says. “Eventually, the conversation will turn to business and this is when you have an opportunity to discuss what you do, why you do it and what makes you different.” Communicating with clients in these terms not only softens barriers, but it shifts the company’s or brand’s relationship with the customer and drives loyalty. “We stop talking to them like they’re a catalog,” Miller says. “It encourages them to be part of the buying experience, whether it’s a long buying cycle like in B2B markets, or a short one like in B2C markets.”
PERCEPTION IS REALITY On a smaller scale, personalization is very much a grassroots effort. Corbett says plans of action include eschewing multiple e-blasts and newsletters, instead focusing on personal interactions with customers. “Thank people personally for meetings or shares of their social content,” he says. “Call them when appropriate. When you find an article they are mentioned in, send it to them and congratulate them. If somebody does something for me, I do a social shout out. Business is a two-way street. Do whatever you can to help the client get exposure and show off what they do to your audiences.” But on a macro scale, such personalization may not be realistic. One-to-one communication, at scale, is a scary proposition. After all, a company with millions of customers can’t possibly hire a marketing staff of millions. But that’s OK, Miller says, because individualization isn’t the goal. It’s really about the perception of personalization. “How are we speaking to that individual so that they believe we are truly speaking to them as an individual?” she asks. “I think that sometimes people miscommunicate personalization because they think that it’s total individualization. It’s really not. It’s that mass personalization that delivers intense layers of relevance to that individual customer.” And don’t misunderstand the message to mean that simply mail-merging a letter with customers’ first names and the city in which they live (à la the technology of the 1990s) will do the trick. That’s bush-league in today’s marketing game. “We’re talking about creating highly relevant moments, regardless of channel,” Miller says. “So that means that if a company is sending an email to me, Liz Miller, not only is it reflective of my history with that brand, but it also is tailor-made for me. That may be different visuals, different offers or offers that are more relevant for me than they are for someone else. It’s about making that intense relevance, because relevance drives relationships.”
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MIXOLOGY Marketing blends data with experience BY MICHAEL J. PALLERINO
dentify. Target. Listen. Serve. When you break down the basic tenets of strategic marketing, the plan doesn’t get any clearer than that. Or so you would think. The continued infatuation of Big Data has driven some marketers off course and thought leaders like Tanya Korpi Macleod don’t believe you should always be so dependent on what the data says. Macleod, president & CEO of The Holistic Marketing Agency, believes that data tends to be totally context-dependent. Take, for example, website metrics. Your intel may tell you that very few visitors ever make it past the first page. The initial reaction is that your home page is just plain terrible. But what if that page contains all the information your customers need, and there is no need for them to press on? That may be what the data implies. But what do your customers say? What information did you (should you) uncover from having real world conversations with them? Is hiding behind data analysis alone the answer?
“None of us is as creative as all of us. When we work with the client, we can leverage the synergy of two or more minds thinking as one.” – Mack Story, Co-founder, TopStoryLeadership.com
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Take that website example. By combining your high-bounce rate (bad) with customer service feedback about how easy it is to get info off of your website (good), you see a different picture. “Your customers and clients are real people to you,” Macleod says. “There are so many more sensory inputs when you engage in oneon-one conversations. You can read body language. You can sense emotion. You can connect and laugh. You can build compassion. It’s incredibly important to have an intimate understanding of what your customers want and need.” Truthfully, that means relying on your team to get out into the field to have real conversations with people. If you don’t, you’re precluding learning. “It’s a little Zen, actually,” Macleod says. You have to have a beginner’s mind, especially with things like social media and the way algorithms and consumer buying habits are changing all the time. People aren’t fundamentally changing, but the tools they use are. You have to keep up with that. If you think you already know everything about everybody, there’s no room for new info. It shuts down your imagination. And that’s not good for anyone.”
Meet me out on the street…
In today’s technologically astute world, with so many different modes of communication available, it can be easy for marketers to hide behind data. But that’s a feeling you must shake – and fast. And here’s the thing – it’s as hard (or as easy) as you make it. If you put the wall up, you can take the wall down. The blueprint is pretty simple. Make sure you and your team get out into the field to meet with your customers. Set aggressive, quarterly goals for meaningful customer discussions. Targeting customer engagements is a good habit to take on. Hearing firsthand your customers’ real successes and frustrations – being a part of the customers’ world – is paramount to improving the way you connect with them. And that means leaving your ego at the door. Ask any marketer and he’ll tell you that egos create roadblocks.
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“It’s hard to get to know your client, or who you are marketing to if you think you are the best. Data doesn’t hurt, but numbers don’t feel emotion.” – Kathy Michel, Director of Marketing & Media Relations, Goucher College While it’s good to be confident in what you do and what your research says, an ego can paralyze you. Face it – you’re human. You don’t know everything. You can follow the trends, stay current by poring through the research, but in the end, there always is more to learn and do when it comes to marketing. “It’s hard to get to know your client, or who you are marketing to if you think you are the best,” says Kathy Michel, director of marketing and media relations at Goucher College in Baltimore. “Data doesn’t hurt, but numbers don’t feel emotion. When you combine the facts and the emotion, it’s easier to prove why you stand out among the rest of your competitors.” Facts are facts, but oftentimes it’s the emotional piece that sells. Marketing comes down to emotional intelligence. It means being self-aware and having an understanding that your clients may be making life-changing decisions, so it’s important to be empathetic. “Marketing is about channeling and harnessing the mind of your audience,” Michel says. “That’s why that real-world engagement part is so huge. You have to know whom you are engaging with. You don’t get that sitting behind a computer screen. It’s always best to know who you’re targeting through face-to-face interactions.” Mack Story wants you to look at it like this: Your clients will not buy from you until they feel understood by you. The key to influencing them is to first allow them to influence you. Your most valuable clients value those who first value them. Story, co-founder of TopStoryLeadership.com, believes that you lead with influence. “Until our clients feel like they matter to us, we don't matter to them. That’s why your most valuable clients are also your most important word-of-mouth advertisers. They already know, like and trust you. Reinforce their belief in you by seeking to understand their needs.”
What Story and thought leaders believe is that while the process is not about you, it starts with you. Who you are on the inside is what others experience on the outside, which means it’s critical that you see the world through the eyes of your clients. “None of us is as creative as all of us,” says Story, whose clients include Chick-fil-A and Koch Industries. “When we work with the client, we can leverage the synergy of two or more minds thinking as one. We can't offer a prescription until we have the proper diagnosis. The quickest way to build rapport with a client is to demonstrate through your actions that their thoughts and opinions matter. When you seek out their input, you move beyond communication and begin to connect.”
“If you think you already know everything about everybody, there’s no room for new info. It shuts down your imagination.” – Tanya Korpi Macleod, President & CEO, The Holistic Marketing Agency
REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD FOSTER ONE-ON-ONE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENTS 1 2
Enables your clients to know who you really are and gain a sense of trust
3 4
Enables you to see, sense and feel emotions on a more intimate level
Will not only learn what they like and don't like, but you will build a deeper relationship
5 6
Creates ongoing, consistent dialogue, not a one-time sales pitch
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The best evangelists for a company are delighted customers
The closer you are to your customers, the less likely they are to look for an alternative provider
Communicates that they are not just a piece of business, but that they matter, too
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ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
Before You Go
SURVEY SHOWS THE VALUE OF PERSONALIZED CONTENT
ame a place, any place, within the customer journey that can’t be bolstered by content. Tough, isn't it? The key is in what type of content you use. According to the “Content Marketing’s Evolution: The Age of Hyper-Personalization and Automation” report, 80 percent of marketers say their objectives are met when they use personalized content over any content. The report, conducted by the Demand Metric and Seismic Report, surveyed more than 180 B2B enterprise stakeholders. Here's a look at the types of content personalization marketers are using today:
SEGMENT SPECIFIC
PERSONA SPECIFIC ACCOUNT SPECIFIC
STAGE SPECIFIC LEAD SPECIFIC
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