Janet Johnson | The Art of Marketing

As a marketer and ‘educator,’ (teaching people to fish, rather than fishing for them is my new bliss) I’ve been spending a good amount of time helping businesses understand the basics of search engine marketing and how to safely negotiate new media influencers (bloggers) and leverage the power of social networks.

All are brand building exercises.

The positive impact of a brand presence online in both search and in social spaces can be accurately measured in both leads and brand value for B2B and B2C brands when campaigns are constructed well.

And the best campaigns - just as in real life - are best constructed when considering people’s intentions, activities and behaviors online.

Building Brand at the Height of Engagement - Search:

Gavin O’Malley, in today’s Online Media Daily wrote of Google’s new report “The Brand Value of Search.” Granted, we must consider the source - Google makes a ton of money serving search advertisements - but there’s measurable value of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to a brand.

Google discovered (in surveying 2400 people, showing them generic ads followed with a brand recall questionnaire):

“As a branding vehicle, paid search strives for top-of-mind awareness for clients’ brand, and negatively impacts awareness for their competitive set, while impressions provide “free” brand lift, without the CPC investment.“

A well-written, compelling search advertisement can, in a mere 130 characters:

• Solve a searcher’s intrinsic desire to find relevant information
• Engage, educate and (even) entertain prospects and future buyers
• Generate brand awareness

…And (according to Paul Kedrosky, brilliant renaissance guy, in his 2007 presentation to Angel Oregon) at an average customer acquisition cost of about $8.20, search is the most cost-effective means to capture customers for some channels.

Building Brand at the Height of Meaning - Social Media

In a classic case of understanding the motivations of people as they engage online; an article in February’s Search Engine Watch dissed advertising as a marketing tactic to increase brand value where social networks are concerned.

“Remember that your brand influencers are online to connect with people who care about the things they care about. They are there to make meaning, not to be broadcast to. They are there to participate and create, not to be advertised to. The more your brand can assist people in connecting with others online to create or share something new, the more favorably you will be received in these new and influential social circles.”

Brands will add value to the consumers congregating in social network spaces by:

• Providing fun (via engaging content, video, games)
• Delivering useful tools (widgets, applets, etc.)
• Providing shortcuts to information (using widgets, extending users’ access to mobile devices, etc.)
• Conversing transparently (which means admitting errors, mistakes and omissions) with their engaged customers and prospects - and
• Listening to what people have to say

Socially connected consumers, interacting with a brand via tools, gadgets and content will easily extend brand awareness (therefore adding tremendous value to a brand) as they share information with others while connecting socially online.

Linking Search and Social Networks

In their book Groundswell, Forrester analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff talk about how social networks naturally connect people with the groups they care about. When people flock together for common good, brand associations are especially strong.

(Think about this. If brand awareness is raised in the act of searching, imagine the strength of a brand impression when engaging in meaningful social activities!)

In the groundswell, every online transaction has the opportunity to be rated and reviewed. What is your consumer’s experience with your brand during the transaction process? Are you measuring it like they are?

In the groundswell, “tags,” which are keywords supplied by ordinary people, are reorganizing the way we find things.

1. People type keywords into search engines
2. Search engines deliver results in the form of advertisements and links to naturally relevant content (most often socially generated content will rise to the top of search results) and
3. Consumers “vote” on the relevancy of the results with each click

In any case, positive brand associations generated along the way; whether you pay per click or pay to play.

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I started hearing rumors about a month ago that Marqui was in serious trouble. Then I began to get queries from business partners around the northwest, asking “Do you know anyone at Marqui any more?” Apparently no one’s been able to get through to support for awhile… and I let my connections there lapse years ago when I left the organization.

And I’m sad to say I read with interest this little cautionary tale in CMSWatch last week which seems to confirm: Marqui est mort, “belly up…” in receivership (a type of bankruptcy).

The news of a tech startup going belly up is not that unusual. However, the news of a Software as a Service (SaaS) (define) provider going under is especially disconcerting. It slams to the forefront the delicate question:

Who really owns my data?

More business applications reside online (in “the cloud”) these days. And the more we rely on cheap/free/hosted/SaaS applications, the more we rely on the people behind them to manage their businesses honestly, ethically, and with the fiduciary controls necessary to withstand market pressures.

Does that mean the due diligence process is heightened when considering your technology partners? Oh, yeah. Especially when you’re doing business with privately-held organizations. Where web content management services are concerned, your partners are often your outsourced IT department. A trust in your partner is paramount. And we’re talking way more than service level agreements and uptime requirements here…

• What recourse does one have when the customer support team won’t answer your calls?
• Who can help you navigate the (oft-remote) handshakes of the organization - when most of your original connections are gone?
• How long do you let things go before you take the actions necessary to take control of your data?

Interestingly, some signs of Marqui’s trouble ahead - called out in the CMSWatch article - are pretty easy to recognize:

• There had been no new press releases since March.
• There had been no new blog posts since September, 2007. (As an aside, it’s going to be extremely sad to have my first two years of blog posts go into the dark matter with Marqui’s demise…)

In the case of Marqui, people who have their web sites hosted by the company must be keeping their fingers crossed that their servers will be properly managed in the time it takes to move away from Marqui. Any implementation of Marqui can be exported to HTML and hosted elsewhere, but what a nervous hassle in the meantime. And the cost of doing so is a huge pain.

I’ve been away from Marqui for about two years now. I feel extreme discomfort for the customers who are scrambling to migrate their data. And I wish I could be of some help.

But I don’t know anyone that I can trust there any more.

I do know plenty of competent, responsible, highly reputable agencies to refer Marqui customers to. It seems as if there might be a bit of an opportunity to help folks who are in extreme need out in that… ping me if I can make a referral.

It’s the least I can do.

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I have a new client, Topia Technology, out of Tacoma, WA. They’ve been working since 9/11 to help the FAA make airspace safer and the US Army Intelligence Security Command to link together disparate systems in support of homeland security. Nice pedigree, great causes.

Today, they’re announcing their first product in the “civilian” world, SKOOT, which helps people transfer huge files (they’ve tested files up to 65GB) securely from one machine to another without relying on FTP servers, email or FEDEX.

Ad Hoc Private Networks (Even on the Fly)

The thing I like about it the most is that you can (from a Windows machine) simply “Save As” any document into a SKOOT folder (that’s right, from within PowerPoint, InDesign, PhotoShop, etc.), and the file will be automatically sent to any user with whom you choose to share that file. On a Mac, it’s a simple drag and drop…

When it’s done shipping, it doesn’t go to some seldom-used “portal” in the clouds, the data ends up right in a SKOOT folder on the recipients’ hard drive - giving sender and recipients secure control of the file at all times.

Corporate Marketers: Imagine being able to simply SKOOT the latest corporate presentation/video/suite of product material to every sales person in your far-flung organization, and the security of knowing they always have the latest “blessed” version with them at all times.

IT Professionals: Huge file transfer is now as easy as “save as…” for your users. You no longer have to take the time to coach Jim in product development how to send large files using an FTP server (if you even have one).

VCs or Investment Bankers: Securely send information during due diligence using SKOOT, and even the IT guys will be unable to tell what’s being moved around.

Read the PC World article where nearly half of IT workers snoop on confidential files. No offense guys, but to make up, here’s how SKOOT relates to Cloud Computing as a bonus. SKOOT is the first in a series of cloud computing apps from Topia.

If only embedding a YouTube video on this blog (and having it render correctly) was that easy! You can download a free 30-day trial, or learn more about SKOOT here, by watching the video.

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I blogged very briefly awhile back about the way shipping company Wallem embraced Enterprise RSS. At the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference, Scott from Attensa was in the audience when Patrick Slesinger, CIO of Wallem, spoke of his simple implementation and integration with the K2 business intelligence platform. Scott published the presentation Patrick gave over on the Attensa blog.

Patrick’s key motivations for deploying the platform are fascinating to me. His four big challenges in developing an IT infrastructure for their floating contingent of vessels and personnel around the globe were:

• Making processes mobile
• Moving process away from terrestrial email
• Pushing information anywhere
• Measuring the real value of information

All are summed up by the notion of “getting the right information to the right people at the right time.”

But the most stunning revelation of the presentation, now that I can see it, is the savings passed along to Wallem’s customers as a result of better information tools leading to improved fleet management…

RSS and Black Gold

In two extremely important and obvious areas of expense, Wallem was able to deliver an 8% fuel oil savings for each of its 329 ships under management. That 8% translated to $394,800,000 annual savings. And they were able to save 6% of each ship’s annual lube oil expenditures - generating another $11,844,000 in savings annually.

How?

The managed enterprise RSS system from Attensa, the Blackpearl BI system from K2 and Microsoft’s SharePoint portal combined to deliver these benefits:

• Increased visibility into systems and resources
• Mobile connected process and feedback loops
• Alignment of information and process, creating knowledge and value
• Better understanding of information required by: Who, What, When, Where and Why…

Imagine the relative ease of deployment, associated benefits and savings that one might discover by connecting any global (or even regional) enterprise’s people and systems through enterprise RSS - without having to rig it up for a floating, constantly moving fleet and personnel.

Mike Gotta, analyst at the Burton Group, and RSS and social media expert moderated the session and summed it up nicely:

“This is not the typical RSS application. That was great. I think it’s stunning how simple things can work so well.”

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I’ve been witness to quite a mental mindstorm brewing in my brain over the past few days, and it’s likely to consume my blog efforts for some time to come… (fair warning, or fantastic relief to my four or five regular readers.)

I attended my first non-high tech conference in years (where I wasn’t a speaker), the Drug Information Association’s (DIA) annual convention. There to represent the Academic Network, I was fortunate to research the state of the pharmaceutical industry’s online strategies; especially as consumers are flocking online to research medical conditions and the medicines they’re being prescribed.

Back to the Basics

What I found was quite surprising - for someone who recently declared 2008 to finally be the year of the business blog… the state of technology (and technical infrastructure) in pharma was pretty surprising.

Partly because of regulations, and I’m not sure what other excuses there are… but frankly I was appalled at the lack of IT infrastructure to do even the basics - like supporting remote work teams. (At least, assuming the session speakers I heard were representative.)

Some examples of issues I heard:

• Many Medical Liaisons (remote representatives of pharma companies) have no access to a shared knowledge base with internal Medical Information team members. An example of a “case study knowledge repository” was shown, but there were no search capabilities, no collaboration capabilities, nothing beyond a database of PDFs or templates. It was as if I was looking at an online portal from 2000.
• Many software representatives (Oracle, Microsoft and others were at the show) had no real notion of allowing their vertical tools to accept web-based information via XML and RSS. When I tried to describe why one might want to poll online communities for potential Adverse Events (something pharma has to monitor and report to the FDA on a strictly regulated basis); I got blank stares.
  • Meanwhile, according to JupiterResearch, the top three reasons people congregate online are:
    • To see what other consumers say about a medication or treatment (36%)
    • To research other consumers’ knowledge and experiences (31%)
    • To learn skills or get education to manage a condition (27%)

Between Rocks and Hard Places…

The panel I was most looking forward to, (and delighted to find it at the show) was titled “Drug Information, Wikipedia and Google Scholar: Implications for Medical Information.” It was both frightening and enlightening at the same time. I Twittered my thoughts as the thing was unfolding… but to net it out:

Frightening: Hearing panelists scoff at the lack of viability of Wikipedia because it’s not scientifically reviewed, yet having them be unwilling (or unable) to correct inadequacies themselves. Even when it comes down to correcting a “simple” edit like changing an inaccurate method of drug delivery - from “oral” to some other method. If they change one heinous error, does that mean the rest of the article is correct by implication?

Enlightening: Because of the advent of WikiScanner in August, 2007, even anonymous entries can be tracked to an IP address and attributed to an organization. Examples were shown where organizations (Diebold and others) altered Wikipedia entries “anonymously” and were later outed for doing so in Wired. The last thing these public companies, tightly regulated by the FDA (ugh, those poor people and their systems… more on that later), want is to be publicly derided for anonymous changes.

Meanwhile, look where most consumers go to find information about medical conditions online:

So my new crusade is to do two things: help enlightened health care organizations safely enter the Health 2.0 space (while trying to stay patient - no pun intended), and to help those of us poor schlubs who are out there looking for information to find the most accurate, up-to-date information possible.

It’s a big job, but somebody has to do it. I welcome all the help I can get…

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