The World's Most Famous Press Release

Post was featured on Forbes.com on July 4th. 
It was written over 230 years ago, 200-300 copies were printed for towns up and down the east coast, and a few made their way to Europe. Contrary to popular belief it contained no signatures and what it promoted was completely unique, new, and flawed.

The Declaration of Independence is arguably the “world’s most famous press release”, according the curator at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where it was written and approved in its final form (unsigned) on July 4^th, 1776.  The signed copy we are familiar with was created in August for ceremonial purposes.  

I found it interesting to hear one of the world’s most famous and important documents being referred to as a “press release” during a class field trip with my son.  The curator used the analogy because he said that there is confusion regarding the purpose of the Declaration; “...the goal of the document was to only articulate “What” and “Why,” not “How.”

As a marketing guy in the audience, I found this history lesson to be an interesting “best practice” from the founding fathers; focus on effectively communicating ONLY “what “and “why.”  How many times have you written and/or read a press release that tried to say too much, and/or lacked clarity on its intended objective?

Another interesting point gathered during our visit was the struggle to form a new federal government (the “How”) under the Articles of Confederation.  At the time, the new federal government had no revenue source (taxation), and no real authority over the states.  

The states operated as their own “countries” deciding on their own currency, religion, and diplomacy with other countries.  Again the marketer in me saw the similarity to the power struggle between corporate marketing and other sales/marketing organizations (Product, Field, Region, etc.).  Would history provide another lesson for marketers?

Congress struggled with governing under the Articles.  Instead of revising the existing document, the Federal Convention decided to draft an entirely new frame of government.  According to the curator, three key issues hung up the approval of the Articles; 

1. Religion
2. Slavery  
3. The power given to the federal government, which many saw coming at the expense of the states. 

Addressing the religious issue was easy; they left it out of the U.S. Constitution.  It was later covered under the Bill of Rights.  On slavery, they reached a compromise by outlawing slave trade in 1808, twenty years in the future.  But the single most important change was the shift from states to the individual in granting the federal government its power.

“We the people…do ordain and establish the Constitution of the United States.”  The federal government now answered to citizens and not the states.  State representatives and congressman now represented the views and best interests of the people within their districts.  By putting citizens first, the founding fathers established a focal point that transcended state interest.  

Could this be the time for a B2B marketing revolution?  With the rise in social media adoption, marketers can now better gauge the needs and desires of their customers.  Customers for their part are showing a willingness to engage like never before.  

As a result, marketers are now presented with an opportunity to shift focus from solely addressing and satisfying internal “states” needs to anticipating, engaging, and serving the needs of customers.

Although I'm a proud Virginian, I'm no Patrick Henry but I say marketers, it's time for our own declaration...marketing by the people, for the people! 

How Many Channels Does it Take to Sell a Phone?

My daughter’s phone stopped working (at least that’s what she told us) and we decided to get her a new smartphone for her birthday.  The problem was that the contract ran until August, which meant we would have to pay full price for the handset.    

According to the customer service agent, since my daughter’s phone is on my wife’s plan – and my wife was eligible for an upgrade – we could apply the upgrade to my daughter’s account. In order to avoid a $20 charge to transfer the upgrade, I needed to complete the transaction online by first registering the account.

A relatively simple task of inputting basic account information became a complex headache.  The information I was inputting didn’t match existing information that the wireless providers had on file and the customer service rep couldn’t tell me what was incorrect.  Frustrated and irritated by what should have been a quick transaction, I was now headed for a local retail location (sales channel #3 if you’re keeping track). 

I explained my situation to the store associate who said I could only get the upgrade by going online, so off to the in-store kiosk we went.  She figured out the registration issue, but then ran into another problem trying to use the upgrade promotion.  That prompted a call to telesales and another in-store sales associate who overheard the conversation to join in. 

All three sales channels were now all involved with an existing customer’s “rebuy” transaction; a textbook example of “channel stacking.”  Two retail reps, a telesales rep, and the web working on converting an “upgrade” that was intended to be a web transaction completed by the customer. 

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that they are putting the customer first and saved me the $20 fee, plus another $50 rebate on the phone (which was another promotion that complicated the deal), but this is the kind of situation that makes a CFO’s head spin.  

A multi-channel sales model is essential in today’s environment, both for businesses and consumers.  The problem in this situation was that the offer did not fit the channel.  And this is a critical point for effectively and efficiently managing a multi-channel approach.  

The promotion upgrade, phone rebate and price were available only as online offers.  And that’s fine, unique offers aligned to single channels entice customers to use them.  The offers on there own were simple but when combined they became too complex for the channel that carried them.  When that happens customers will cross channels when given the opportunity.   

To effectively use a multi-channel sales model you must:

• Align the product, offer and/or both to fit the channel - In the case of the web that means simplifying them.  The web is intended to be a self-directed user channel.  If you can’t simplify the product or offer, then it’s the wrong channel.  
• Map the customer buying process – learn, shop, buy and support. This will help define the user experience, which will be helpful for the next step. 
• Anticipate user issues -  add coaching points and/or use existing customer information to auto-populate fields.  This will require testing...it's worth it.

The phone arrives today.  Remember I couldn’t get it at the store because it was an online promotion.   It will add $20 per month to our monthly bill.  The contract is for 24 months.  The total value of the transaction is $580  --  $480 in fees, plus the $100 for the phone.  Total cost of the transaction to the service provider…they don’t want to know; it’s not good for the CFO’s health.

The Rise of New Competition

Clayton Christensen, in his best selling book “The Innovators Dilemma” explains why companies - despite having leading edge technologies and market share - fail over time.  He states “It was as if the leading firms were held captive by their customers, enabling attacking entrant firms to topple the incumbent industry leaders each time a disruptive technology emerged.”

 

Christensen uses the disk drive industry as an example and explains: “When the best firms subsequently failed, it was for the same reasons--they listened responsively to their customers and invested aggressively in the technology, products, and manufacturing capabilities that satisfied their customers' next-generation needs. This is one of the innovator's dilemmas: Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake.”

The pursuit of ever increasing profits causes companies to increase their prices and innovate to bigger and better.  As a result, they alienate and/or under-serve smaller customers along the way, opening the door to new competitors who serve those neglected customers with simple and inexpensive technologies. After winning the customer’s loyalty, the new entrants innovate their way up to larger customer segments along the way taking market share.

Last year US companies reported record earnings, up 37% in the fourth quarter.   Most of those gains have been made through productivity improvements as a result of the “jobless recovery.”  First quarter earnings for 2011 were a modest 11% because of inflationary pressure coming from oil, commodities and transportation. 

Similar to the disk drive manufacturers highlighted in Clayton’s book, big companies who performed extremely well last year will be under pressure this year to maintain profits.   The challenge this year is that cost are rising and companies have little room to absorb it.  As a result, they are passing these costs to customers, which we have already begun to see.   

Although confidence is slowly improving, consumers haven’t recovered fully from the recession.  Wages have not kept pace with inflation.  And according to a study by McKinsey, consumers have also learned to appreciate and enjoy lower cost products.  When taking all this into consideration, we have a perfect storm gathering for new competition to enter at the low-end of the market. 

What industries and companies are most likely to be squeezed?   Let’s first start with who probably won’t: Industries with very little transportation and manufacturing needs; like the service sector; and media.  Retail banking, financial information and professional services also come off the list.  Business in industries that are somewhat shielded from inflation pressure, and/or can easily pass it along to consumers, like Healthcare and Utilities, also are likely to not feel the pressure.  

Using that same logic companies in industries that rely heavily on transportation and commodities are top targets.  Airlines, grocery chains, and manufacturing expect to see new low cost competitors with unique business models.  Companies with high gross margins will also be especially rip for picking.

Where will the competition come from?  Hopefully, new, innovative US companies but the best bet is probably China.  They’ll use their low cost producer advantage, along with the fact that China controls more than 90% of the rare earth elements.  Those minerals are used in your IPAD, IPhone and electric motors...given that fact, let’s add hi-tech to the list. 

The good news is that time is right for disruptive innovation.  New companies should mean job growth, as long as the credit markets continue to improve.   And if you’re in an industry mentioned above, hopefully, innovation is top of the list of company priorities. 

Coming out of the recession we are, most likely, very attuned to our biggest customers.  But as Christensen warns us, to stay competitive we need to avoid being held “captive” by them.  Perhaps while we are on the look out for new competitors, we might also want to keep an eye out for new customers.  

Using Content Curation Tools for B2B Thought Leadership

Years ago, I ran marketing for a professional services firm.   As with most consulting firms, our demand generation efforts were based on thought leadership.  Getting the content for those programs was a long and painful process, worse than pulling teeth because, most of the time we had to fabricate the teeth and then pull them out. 

One would think that with the rise of social media and the focus at the corporate level on blogging, that content creation would not be a problem. However, according to a recent HiveFire research poll, the challenges I encountered ten years ago still exist today; finding, developing and producing high quality content.  Could the latest content curation tools be the answer?  

Content Curation tools like Scoop.it, and Storify, are the next generation digital content tools having evolved from content aggregation (gathering links, like Google News) and social bookmarketing tools (like Delicious and Digg). The key difference in this evolution being the human “curator.”  To this point, those tools have been aimed at consumers to help them manage and sort through the vast spaces of web content.  

The latest version of these tools, Curata (a HiveFire company, the sponsor of the research) and Curation Station are aimed at B2B.  With a value proposition focused on their ability to drive awareness by improving organic search, and providing organizations with an opportunity to build thought leadership.  

The curator is an editor who sorts through the content to find the information relevant to them and/or their audience.   They are not content creators.  And this is where I think the challenge lies in using the tools for thought leadership.

First, creating a content farm on a “hot” topic will not improve a company’s organic search results (Google has already figured this out).  It also will not establish an organization “thought leadership” in a area on its own.  

As the survey referenced, Marketers stated that “Creating Original Content” was the number one challenge; companies must establish a point of view, not just aggregated content on a particular subject.  So what value do these new tools offer?

To understand that it's helpful to first understand how thought leadership content is developed.  For example, the process I used in the past involved five steps:

1. Deciding on a issues set
2. Developing a point of view
3. Conducting research to validate the POV
4. Summarizing the research and drawing out insights
5. Writing and publishing a content piece  

Challenges related to this process involved:

• Limited time and/or resources…often both
• Limited view on the issue – often our only perspective was through our existing clients lenses
• Drawing out insights – sometimes the research didn’t reveal anything new and/or enlightening
• Distributing content – after all the effort the distribution of the content often fell short of expectations
• Maintaining the program – continuing to create content beyond the initial launch

By taking these opportunities and challenges into light, we can begin to see where the tools provide value.  Using this as a framework, the tools can add value by:

• Reducing the time required to collect research for developing the issue set
• Providing a real-time, broad view into top issues and/or hotpoints on a subject area
• Integrating multiple content formats (tweets, video, etc.)
• Creating leverage for staff on content creation and management
• Being a ready made vehicle for distributing and measuring content

Content curation tools are enablers, not end solutions. To fully realize their potential, they will need the human elements of curation and creation.   It will require staff (#4 on the challenge list), and time (#2 on the list).  The good news is with these tools it will require less of it to be successful.

Keep in mind, thought leadership must be established.  It’s not a campaign...it is a program.  It’s also not something you say you have, but rather something others recognize that you provide.  

For more information on the subject, Susan McKittrick has written an excellent white paper on the subject. 

5 Steps for Driving Growth

The good news is that economy is on the mend; consumer and customers are buying again.  The bad news is that many companies will struggle to capture that opportunity.

Changes made as a result of the recession may now restrict companies from growing.  During the recession, marketing budgets were cut and the sales force chased any customer willing to buy -- at any price.  Most likely, sales territories, products in the bag, etc. were expanding, either as a result of downsizing the sales force, and/or expanding opportunities so that they could have a chance to make quota…either way they have a lot of ground to cover. 

The question facing many organizations today is how to align sales and marketing activities, investments and resources, against the biggest growth opportunities while still covering the expanding set of customers and products.  How can the sales force, and/or our marketing resources to do more?   The classic -- do more with less scenario. 

Well, the answer this time is you can’t. The reason is that the recession lasted so long (20 months) that everything that could be stretched…has been stretched.  It’s now time to reset sales and marketing strategy.  Here are five steps to get you started:

1. Move the "low hanging fruit" – During the downturn many organizations allowed sales organization to count EVERYTHING towards quota.  It’s now time to start moving inbound orders (rebuys) and sales of a certain size (small) somewhere else (most likely telesales) to free up sales force time.  Move it quickly, consider incenting them during the first 6 months to migrate transactions to insides sales or partners. Capacity needs to be freed so that it can be redirected to growth.  If you are concerned about not being able to move fast enough, just stop paying commission on small or inbound deals and/or do not count them towards quota…nature will run its course. 
2. Relocate and recondition small customers – Along with small orders, small customers (who often require more than their share of attention) need to move as well.  They may have grown accustomed to the special attention they’ve received as a result of the downturn. However, it’s now time to ‘right size’ the cost to manage them with the opportunity they represent.  You may want to incent them to self-service via the web or transfer the relationship to a business partner.  Do your homework by evaluating customer profitability and set a new higher target.  
3. Push Sales into bigger deals – After you’ve freed up Sales’ time, focus on increasing the pipeline and average deal size.  Turn marketing back on to help (see my post on the Pipeline).  It’s also time to ramp up your analytics, segmentation and data mining operations.   Build models to help identify opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell products and customers.  Corporate Marketing will need to update corporate positioning and the messaging architecture to align with where the market and customers exist. Product marketing has to develop solutions and messaging to drive larger deals.
4. Increase price points  – This is related to the point above: stop discounting products and services immediately.  Wind down incentive pricing, and start developing new offers with customer, and market aligned value propositions.  This will be a challenge to manage as the sales force and customers have become conditioned to expect a “good deal," despite the fact that it has been shown to be ineffective.  Invest in research to determine how their expectations have been impacted because of this practice.
5. Expand your channels – this will be important to several reasons.  First, a new “home” for small transactions and customers is needed.   The second is that you may not be able to reach or capture the market because it has shifted (e.g. new technology/innovation, competitors, etc.).   Invest ahead of the curve as good sales people are hard to find and there is going to be a run on them.  Along with reps, get your partners up and running now, and grow into full productivity later. 

Lastly, don’t over look the need for change management.  According to the Corporate Executive Board, 25% of high performers indicated that they are interested in changing companies as the economy recovers.  Invest time in evaluating the impact of implementing the steps mentioned inside your organizations. 

Customer and rep behaviors have changed, as well as markets.  The recession was one of the longest in our history.  It’s a mistake to just snap back to the way it was.  Be smart and invest in research on your customers, competitors and markets.  Set a three year plan to double revenues, price points, etc.  Create aspirational goals and get the organization excited again…it’s been a long time coming.