Are you mistaking marketing tactics for strategy? ~ By Mike Moran

Diversification (marketing strategy) (Photo credit: Wikipedia

One of the fun parts of my job is that I work with very smart people–my clients. One of them told me that they have no interest in figuring out their LinkedIn strategy. It’s not that he doesn’t care about LinkedIn–far from it–but he is voicing something that is critically important in marketing: understanding the difference between tactics and strategy. His point is that if you don’t understand your overall strategy, you’re not ready to think about LinkedIn.

 

If this seems somehow off to you, let me try it a different way. Suppose you just landed at a new company in charge of marketing and someone walks into your office the first day and says, “We need a strategy for billboards.”–what would you say?

Now, understand, depending on the company, you might really need a strategy for billboards–I don’t know. But that’s the point. First, you need to understand your overall market strategy, and how digital fits into it, and then you can start thinking about social and maybe LinkedIn. It makes no sense to dive into LinkedIn just because all the cool kids are doing it. Or because your competitors are doing it. Or because the boss asked for it.
Now that’s not to say that you can’t have a LinkedIn strategy or a social strategy or a search strategy. In fact, we even provide training that helps you set your digital strategy in any of these areas. But it’s important that you be thinking strategically. What do any of these approaches do for your business? Why are they important? How do they fit with other things you are doing? How will you know they are working.
That’s a lot more important than being able to tell the boss that you have a LinkedIn group.

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About the author

Mike Moran Author of the acclaimed book on Internet marketing, Do It Wrong Quickly, on the heels of the best-selling Search Engine Marketing, Inc., Mike Moran led many initiatives on IBM's Web site for eight years, including IBM's original search marketing strategy. Mike holds an Advanced Certificate in Market Management Practice from the Royal UK Charter Institute of Marketing, is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, and regularly teaches at Rutgers, UC Irvine, and FDU.

• In addition to his contributions to Biznology, Mike is a regular columnist for Search Engine Guide. He also frequently keynotes conferences worldwide on digital marketing for marketers, public relations specialists, market researchers, and technologists, and serves as Chief Strategist for Converseon, a leading digital media marketing agency. Prior to joining Converseon, Mike worked for IBM for 30 years, rising to the level of Distinguished Engineer. Mike can be reached through his Web site (mikemoran.com).

Is social media all the market research you need?~Andrea Goldberg

In Mike Moran’s recent post, he pointed out that digital marketing is more about understanding marketing than it is about being a technology expert. I could not agree more. One certainly needs to understand the basics of marketing to be successful in digital marketing. But, I would like to take this argument even further, understanding marketing is necessary but not sufficient. It is all about understanding customers and their wants, needs and values. Market research rocks!
In the fast-paced world we live in, carefully constructed research that focuses on identifying customer underlying needs and enables segmentation has largely fallen out of favor. In our service economy, it is very easy to create new offerings and use digital media to establish a brand, put out messages, create buzz, etc. The cost of entry is minimal and digital marketers have gotten good at using sophisticated tactics to reach their targets. But, I am concerned that we sometimes lose sight of why things fail. Even the most innovative products and the most sophisticated digital marketing campaigns will fall short if at the end of the day they do not satisfy some basic or perceived need or are out of tune with prevailing norms and values. Yes, we can tune in and listen to the chatter. But do we really understand what our clients need? And do we take the time to do post mortems and understand what went wrong when we do not succeed? Or, as I suspect, do we simply go on to the next new thing?
As we move further into a world where digital has replaced paper and online search terms have replaced 30 second TV ads, have we forgotten some of the basics? It we only listen to the on-line chatter might we miss the opportunity to fulfill desires that are not expressed? And, are we failing to get the kind of insights or feedback we need?
At the end of the day, I think it is about balance. I have seen companies eliminate brand tracking and customer loyalty studies because they believe they can find out what they need online. Web analytics are important tools, but they do not necessarily tell us why. Is a customer that reads your blog or clicks on your site necessarily a loyal customer? The digital world is full of metrics and on-line behavior tracking. What motivates that behavior is a little more difficult to discern.
So, while I am not advocating that everything be learned through one-way mirrors or phone-based surveys, I do propose that the right tools be employed to gain insights about current and potential clients. The best of all worlds might be to pair the two types of data so that one can understand how online behaviors correlate with attitudes, satisfaction and loyalty. In this way, one could, for example, understand the behavioral pattern of customers who are considering defection and develop a strategy to prevent them from departing. Too often, we act only after they have already gone when it is too late.
Insights can come from online tools and communities. But they can also come from analyzing data by segment or from simply asking why. And, while old-fashioned, surveys, ideation sessions and focus groups may actually turn out be good investments, “Build it and they will come” might work well in the movies, but it never was a great marketing concept!

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Does your Internet marketing training make you feel dumb?~By Mike Moran

I have been hearing from a lot of people on my post from Wednesday on new ways to train your team in digital marketing. I’ve gotten great feedback, but there was one comment that struck a nerve, when someone asked if anything about marketing and sales is the same as it was back before the InterWebs. I understand why people ask that question and I feel compelled to give an answer that is not the normal one for a digital marketing trainer. Most things are not any different than they were before. Most of what you knew then is still true. Marketing is still marketing.
I know, I know. Heretic! Blasphemer! I know that I am supposed to be this brandy-new social media guy who can introduce you to the brave new world. I mean, the more new and the scarier it is, the more you need the training, right? If I can scare you until you wet yourself then you’ll just have to hire me. At least that is how the thinking seems to go.
There are a couple of problems with that approach. One is that it isn’t exactly true. The other is that it isn’t very helpful to someone trying to adapt to all the changes.
You see, the dirty little secret of Internet marketing trainers is that Internet marketing is way more about marketing than about the Internet. I’ll prove it to you. If I gave you a choice for your next digital marketing czar–you can pick either an expert on the Internet or an expert on marketing, who do you want? As an ex-IT guy, I mean this kindly, but DON’T TAKE THE TECHNOLOGY GEEK.
Internet marketing isn’t about the Internet any more than radio advertising needs someone who understands the gigahertz of the FM band. Or the intricacies of audio recording. I’m not saying that such knowledge is useless–what I know about how search engines work clearly helps me in search marketing–but it is less important than understanding why customers search and what they are looking for.
And marketers already know a lot of what they need, if people would only explain it better. For example, search keywords are market segments. Yes, I know that the traditional marketer might not see that right away, but when I spend some time explaining it, then suddenly they know a dozen things they can do–they can see which keywords have the most loyal customers or the highest conversion rate or the highest order size. The reason they can quickly do that is because they already know how to compare market segments, so once they know what keywords are, then they can apply what they already know.
I’ve trained direct marketers in digital marketing in about three days. These people walk into class thinking they are dinosaurs and walk out ready to run rings around people who might be really good at Facebook but they don’t really understand how to measure response to a marketing message and what to do about it.
Sales people tell me they don’t know how to use social media to sell. Then I show them that every time their customer asks a question, they have a blog post. They can communicate with customers on LinkedIn every day without being annoying. And they get it.
I hope there isn’t anyone out there feeling defeated and old because they just don’t get this Internet stuff. I’m telling you that if you know marketing that you can know Internet marketing. You just need it explained based on what you know already, instead of being the brave new world. It ain’t.


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