Brand Quarterly Issue 18

IS YOUR BRAND DRESSED FOR SUCCESS?

ISSUE #18 Embrace The Social Age To Become A More Effective Leader Content Is King... As Long As The Kingdom Is Interested!

Amplify Your Social Selling Strategy And Increase ROI Creating A Viral Sales Engine Through Branding Mastering The Forever Transaction ...and much more inside.

Also Featured In This Issue:

4 Are You Ready For Brand Vandals?

Stephen Waddington

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Embrace The Social Age To Become A More Effective Leader

Content Is King…

As Long As The Kingdom Is Interested!

Ted Coiné

Gerry Moran

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Creating A Viral Sales Engine Through Branding

Brands: Think Globally, Act Locally

Let Me Put It In Context For You…

Kristin Luck

Shama Hyder

Travis Wright

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Get Over Yourself And Know What You Don’t Know

Past The Glass Ceiling: Where To Go When You’re “That Good”…

Jeffrey Hayzlett

Lori Ruff

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40 BQ Insider: Mirko Holzer CEO and General Manager BrandMaker GmbH

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Mastering The Forever Transaction

Brand Identity: Making The Amplify Your Social Selling Transition From Old To New Strategy And Increase ROI

Robbie Kellman Baxter

Andrew Vesey

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Melonie Dodaro

60 Benchmarking Loyalty Programs: A Call For Consistency

64 Brand Quarterly’s 2015 ‘50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50’ List

Use This Simple Button To Come Back Here Anytime At the top right of page spreads

Mark Johnson

From The Editor Get your brand dressed for success, with a little help from the 60+ brand, marketing and business experts sharing their insights in this 4th Birthday edition of Brand Quarterly.

Four short years ago, Andrew and I nervously launched the first issue of Brand Quarterly (our ‘baby’). The couple of hundred supportive people who witnessed our first issue has grown - to see this October mark our first 350,000+ page views in a month - due in large part to our loyal readers spreading the word and the generosity of our world class contributors sharing their expertise. A HUGE Birthday Thank You to each and every one of you; we hope you enjoy this issue (and the many more to come).

Another big factor in our continuing growth is the support of our wonderful Brand Benefactors.

This issue sees us welcoming branding automation wizards, Bynder, into our Brand Benefactor fold - helping us to bring you more brand-building insights and tools on a regular basis - thanks for your support guys, looking forward to collaborating with you over the coming year.

You’ll also find unveiled in this issue your ‘50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50’ for 2015 (starting on page 64). Plus, check out page 35, for details on our inaugural Brand Champions list. Know someone who epitomises their company brand? Who goes the extra mile to spread the brand message? Let’s help them get the recognition they deserve.

Enjoy this issue - and make sure you try the cake :)

Fiona Brand Quarterly Magazine ISSUE #18 - Published NOV 2015 www.BrandQuarterly.com Publisher/Design: Vesey Creative Ltd brandquarterly@veseycreative.com

As the publishers of Brand Quarterly, we take every care in the production of each issue. We are however, not liable for any editorial error, omission, mistake or typographical error.

The views expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of their respective companies or the publisher.

Brand Quarterly

Copyright: This magazine and the content published within are subject to copyright held by the publisher, with individual articles remaining copyright to the named contributor.

Express written permission of the publisher and contributor must be acquired for reproduction.

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Are You Ready For Brand Vandals?

Stephen Waddington

Internet-fuelled media is a game-changer for brand communications. You’re no longer in control – in fact, you never have been.

Are you ready? I doubt it.

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The biggest change in brand communication in the last 60 years is that it can no longer be one-way. It should never have been, but brands have tried to manage the flow of information to their audiences, often using the media as a proxy for what used to be seen as engagement.

It’s much easier to deal with a handful of journalists than manage thousands of direct relationships. Thanks to the Internet, everyone now has a voice and the opportunity to call out a brand.

Thanks to the Internet, everyone now has a voice and the opportunity to call out a brand Consumers have shared their views of brands whenever one or more people have gathered together: in coffee shops, pubs, school playgrounds, bathrooms or bedrooms.

The difference now is that everyone can share these opinions for anyone else in the world to see, and can even undertake acts of brand vandalism.

And guess what? They do.

The Internet has democratised elites and flattened society. Now anyone with a mobile phone or tablet with access to the Internet can publish their point of view about a brand. If they are upset, they can write critical comments.

Difficult Conversations Brands can no longer avoid these conversations. And why would they?

These same brands spend vast sums on advertising, marketing and public relations, in a bid to engage their prospects, customers and stakeholders positively. Thanks to the Internet they can now find anyone talking about their business or the markets in which they operate.

Not all brands want to listen to these conversations though, and some claim to be listening but aren’t at all. But then these conversations don’t always make for easy listening.

Brands used to operate under the belief that they could control how a message was communicated to an audience. Much of the discipline of corporate communications has been built on this premise. In reality, brands can plan their public relations activity and carefully craft messages and content, but control has never really been possible.

Today, thanks to the Internet these conversations also now take place beyond physical boundaries and locations. They are passed on through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Each individual with their social and digital connections is the gateway to other networks. Once a message hits a social network any notion of control is immediately lost.

Once a message hits a social network any notion of control is immediately lost

These views can be shared thanks to social media or discovered thanks to search.

Communication between a brand and its audiences has become two-way, or a conversation, to use the modern day parlance of the Internet.

There Ain’t No Stopping It Now The genie is very firmly out of the bottle, and there is no going back. The Internet has seen phenomenal growth in the last ten years in particular, with more than two billion people 6

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now connected online. The two technology drivers have been broadband networks and mobile.

In the western world, networks are being upgraded from copper to high-speed fibre.

In Asia and the BRIC economies, countries are leapfrogging directly to fibre. Mobile connectivity is following a similar cycle as networks are upgraded to 4G or built from the ground up in markets.

Here’s a defining signpost for the future: 2013 was the year that the Internet went mobile as the number of consumer mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets overtook personal computers, according to data from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer (KPCB).

Access to the Internet is becoming truly ubiquitous. You better ensure that your website is responsive to different browser environments if it isn’t already. Facebook and Google are building their businesses with the expectation that around three billion more people will join the web by the end of the decade.

In the late 1990s, when consumer internet connectivity first became a mainstream consumer product, the Internet was a destination. It was a place that you visited using a personal computer and browser.

Now we carry the Internet around in our pockets thanks to smartphone devices and burgeoning mobile networks.

The shift to mobile marks a notable behaviour change for consumers. This was significant as it removed the shackle of wires.

Consumers could browse the Internet on the move, which has added an additional layer of information and communication to life.

It’s a layer that transcends government and commerce and democratises society.

The next surge of growth is already in sight as electronic products such as cars, and consumer white goods are connected to the Internet, to share information and data to form the so-called Internet-of-things.

Two-Way Engagement As A Reputational Defence Much has been written about the skills that corporate and government communications teams must possess in the Internet Age. The emergence of popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter has promoted a rush of digital teams and communicators to come to the fore - who professed to have the skills to be able to tackle online reputation crises. Perhaps many did, but the fact that the medium is digital is not the point.

The fact that the medium is digital is not the point What it comes down to is that the Internet has accelerated the need to respond quickly beyond all known recognition, forced complete transparency and lowered the bar for editorial entry to near zero. It means communications teams do need some new skills to be able to deal with this changed media environment, but they also need to sharpen up their acts across the board too.

There’s nowhere to hide, and no room for comfort.

There’s a long list of the skills required, as well as a large dose of common sense. Here though, are the five skills that modern brand communications teams should develop in order to be effective. None are new, but all are fundamental, and need to be stretched beyond the bounds of the era of print and broadcast being the primary forms of media.

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1. Brand Fitness

3. Media Savvy

The way communication is orchestrated to tackle brand vandalism must be rooted in military-like procedures, so that everyone knows their place and there is a place for everything. Procedures, multiple paths of action mapped to foreseen circumstances, content production, revision and approval.

And the people who need to come together to make it all happen must be corralled into one cohesive, progressive function.

You’ve also got to keep a permanent watch on the media environment: only by charting media change and understanding the implications of new technologies and new techniques will you have the level of protection that the brand really needs.

The way communication is orchestrated to tackle brand vandalism must be rooted in military-like procedures 2. Flexibility Having ironed out any rough edges that existed, overcome weak spots and brought order where only limited process existed, there must also be an early warning system.

It must also be inherently pliable, so that it can adapt quickly and with minimal effort to any change in immediate circumstance as well as to evolve progressively as media continues to become more sophisticated, and brand or commercial priorities change.

4. Speed The people running the system and involved in every aspect of the communication function have to be extremely agile. There are effectively no deadlines, as it’s a case of as soon as is physically possible. We’re not robots though, and human beings can only move so fast in order to react. So the underlying support system and pre-approved plan needs to enable them to move as fast as they humanly can.

5. Wit And Wisdom Finally, communicators must be ingenious, even when faced with the most tortuous of sabotage incidents, because they have an opportunity to gain cut-through and take the advantage for the brand. Doing so will require a team that is organised, adaptable, agile, calm and brave, but beyond that success can be driven through ingenuity.

Stephen Waddington Chief Engagement Officer | Ketchum Stephen Waddington is Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum, the international communications firm. He helps clients around the world make sense of the changes in media and organisational communication, ensuring that the agency has the right people, skills and services. Stephen is a Visiting Professor in Public Relations at Newcastle University, UK and a past President of the CIPR. His books include Brand Vandals, #BrandAnarchy, Share This, Share This Too, and Chartered Public Relations. He’s the founder of the #PRstack community and blogs regularly at wadds.co.uk.

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Thursday, December 3, 2015 in Amsterdam

The world’s leading branding automation event Educating, Inspiring and Connecting Brand Managers Discover the latest in brand management technology, and connect with some of the industry’s top leaders. Experience a full day of digital insights and networking.

REGISTER TODAY

www.onbrand15.com

Disruption As Usual: Embrace The Social Age To Become A More Effective Leader Ted Coiné

Disruption. Constant change.

Relentless innovation. When was the last time you spent even an hour of your working day free from addressing these issues?

This is not your father’s business environment.

This is all about people, not platforms. It’s the new rules and expectations that have changed, much more than any technology.

Think of it like this:

But is the role of the executive really so different from when you were climbing the ranks?

Sure, technology has advanced, but… isn’t leadership leadership, same as always?

Life – and how we worked, and thus how we led – couldn’t have been more radically different than that sudden shift our grandparents faced when our society fully industrialized a century ago.

That is, until now. The move from factory to phone is every bit as different, as seismic, as was the move from farm to factory before it.

Not even remotely.

The most important thing for executives to keep in mind is that this is a new age of business, one that requires its own ways to lead. Social media itself – especially the media part of it – is barely even a bit player here, nothing more than a catalyst.

MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp… The platform will change and change again, but the basic conditions will not: people are now talking to each other, and circumventing leaders, on a scale never before imaginable.

Customers are talking to each other: about us, our competitors, our industry, what they wish we’d do for them; often, we’re not even aware of these conversations. Marketing, PR, and Investor Relations aren’t invited to the party.

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Neither are our recruiters. Prospective workers are talking to each other, to our current employees, and our past insiders, too, to find out what life is really like once that employment contract is signed.

The move from factory to phone is every bit as different, as seismic, as was the move from farm to factory When change is this omnipresent and unstoppable, we who live through it don’t get a vote. Seriously. We adapt, or we retire early. That’s reality.

So who thrives in this scenario? The leaders who embrace change. The ones who don’t merely adapt to change, but who bring it to their industries. Nobody ever complained about disruption when they were the disruptors. From that stance, disruptive change is nothing but fun.

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Sounds nice and all, my C-level audiences remark at least weekly, “But… how? How do I go from disrupted to disruptor?”

I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it’s easy. That would make me popular right up until the day you’re put out to pasture for a more modern leader. I’m not about to do you that “favor” – and I urge you to distrust anyone who does, be they in your boardroom or working for that white shoe consulting company you brought in.

Nothing worth doing is easy. If you’re an executive, you learned that long ago.

But leadership done well is profoundly, phenomenally simple. Hopefully, you see the distinction. And with that in mind, here are five simple things for you to consider and - when you’re ready (hopefully quite soon) to implement in your own daily leadership principles and actions.

Leadership done well is profoundly, phenomenally simple

1. Go Social - See For Yourself You can’t merely read about this in the Wall Street Journal, and you certainly don’t want to farm out your social responsibilities to a new-hire in PR. Follow the lead of a small but growing band of social leaders - “Blue Unicorns” because they’re still so hard to find.

Take Dun & Bradstreet’s CEO, Bob Carrigan for example, who was brought in with a mandate to modernize his stodgy 174-year-old brand.

Leading from the frontlines of the 24/7 social discussion has allowed him to meet customers, employees, and influencers he never would have met otherwise.

Showing through his example how serious his company is about becoming the data company his clients will rely on for the next 174 years.

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2. Transparency Is King - Embrace It Have a deep, dark secret to keep from regulators, investors, your customers or your own staff? Have fun keeping it! Secrets are a thing of the past – for better and for worse, indiscriminately, all truths are being unveiled.

Said something snarky about your brand only being for the “cool kids,” as Abercrombie & Fitch’s chairman Mike Jeffries did in 2006 seven full years before the remarks resurfaced, to demolish his brand and unseat him from his chairmanship? In the Social Age, it isn’t just important to act good. Actually being good, deep down, is now a business imperative. Today, the truth comes out.

It isn’t just important to ‘act good’.

Actually ‘being good’, deep down, is now a business imperative

3. Command And Control Is Out - Let Go If spin is no longer an option, neither is dictatorship. And that’s an excellent thing for executives interested in attracting - and motivating, and keeping - only the best. Think of it this way: your employees in this creativeworker economy each have a brain weighing about two pounds. Don’t make them leave most of that in the parking lot as they walk into work each day!

Humans are smart; we live to work on complex problems. Social Age executives set a direction, then ask staff to help them figure out how to get there. Go ahead, give it a try.

You’re going to like this way of leading a lot better than the grumpy metrics-riding boss way. Your stockholders will like it better, too.

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4. Act Small Or Close Up Shop

identify the world’s most extraordinary individuals or vendors to help with any given project. Just as large companies need to act small to survive, small companies can “act” big to get any project done by bringing in partners from their network.

In the 1950s, the average time a company spent on the Fortune 500 was 75 years.

Today, it’s closer to seven. Why? At some point in nearly every company’s growth trajectory, the bureaucracy takes over decision-making.

Bureaucrats are great at running things the same today as yesterday; what they seem temperamentally ill-suited to is making decisions at lightning speed, ceaselessly questioning every process, and incorporating diverse perspectives. Those are all the hallmarks of small, nimble organizations – and that’s exactly who is built to thrive in this age of disruption-as-usual.

5. OPEN Up Your Network Once upon a time, an enterprise could be compared to a moated castle, with all the skilled workers a company needed to succeed isolated on the inside. In the Social Age? The Social Age is the age of OPEN – short for Ordinary People | Extraordinary Network.

Of course, finding the talent you need (internally or externally) and bringing them in to help you requires mutually beneficial relationships, and that isn’t about technology at all: it’s about people.

Which brings us to the rallying cry of the Social Age: More Social. Less Media.

After all, how we connect, on what platform, isn’t really that consequential at all. The magic is in the connection. Go social yourself. Embrace transparency. Let go of control. Act small, even if you’re huge. And OPEN up to the power of your internal and external network. Do that, and the future is yours for the taking!

Successful larger companies are connected within by collaboration technology, so that the best people can be found and put to work regardless of official job title or department: in this way, talent floats. Through externalfacing social technology, leaders can also

The rallying cry of the Social Age: More Social. Less Media

Ted Coiné Chief Marketing Officer | Meddle Inc. CMO of Meddle.it, at the cutting edge of content marketing through employee advocacy, Ted is a Forbes Top 10 Social Media Power Influencer and an Inc. Top 100 Leadership Expert and Top 100 Speaker. Ranked #1 authority on the Social CEO and #3 in the Future of Work, Ted is also a serial business founder and three-time CEO. This stance at the crossroads of social and leadership gave Ted a unique perspective to identify the demise of Industrial Age management and the birth of the Social Age. The result, after five years of trend watching, interviewing and intensive research, is his latest book, A World Gone Social: How Companies Must Adapt to Survive. He lives in Naples, Florida, with his wife and two daughters.

www.meddle.it/tedcoine

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Content Is King…

As Long As The Kingdom Is Interested!

Gerry Moran

Content is king - as long as there is a kingdom to follow you. So, if you want to build a kingdom of loyal customers, then you need a content strategy, right?

Many brands, like many kings, try to survive in their ivory towers belting out their forcefed messaging - ‘buy our product’, ‘attend our event’, or ‘download our white paper’.

This brand-centric messaging approach falls on deaf ears, demonstrated by the lack of business impact driven social media or content marketing. This lack of results does not mean social media and content marketing does not work. Rather, it implies brands are not using social media and content correctly!

Key Insights Supporting The Need For A Better Content Strategy These three keys statistics and their related insights should concern every marketer: 1. Your Content Interests Fewer Customers Every Day Marketers created 78% more content in 2014 with 60% less engagement, states Track Maven. This performance implies brands waste messaging and decrease their ROC return on content.

2. Inability To Prove Content Worth 50% of B2B marketers cannot track a return on their investment, suggesting they have no idea what works. They just know they should be doing something. Hmm. 3. Customers Are Using More Content Every Year Nielsen reports Americans own four digital devices on average and spend 60 hours a week consuming content across these devices. Additionally, Google suggests the average B2B consumer reads 10.4 pieces of content before making a purchase decision.

The inference you should make is - consumers want more content, but yours might not be resonating with them because you don’t have a strategy. So, what’s your plan?

You are not alone with the lack of a content strategy. In fact, Content Marketing Institute says about 65% of brands do not have a written plan. Now, there’s a competitive differentiation opportunity, huh? Here’s some help to build your content kingdom with an appropriate brand strategy.

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10 Steps To Building A Content Strategy - And Kingdom For Your Brand 1. Start With Your End In Mind – to figure out how to inspire your audience to engage with content.

Your content needs to support your business and marketing goals. You need to be clear on what you want your audience to think and do when they read it and how this intended action supports your overall goals. If content is not foundational to your overall goals, then you are wasting resources and lowering your Return On Content! Your messaging is the fuel to help buyers on their journey – just make sure you have enough of the right gas in the tank to get them to their destination.

If content is not foundational to your overall goals, then you are wasting resources

– so you can use the right content to invite your customers to visit.

A great content strategy rolls up to an over arching messaging house, supporting a single message… manifesting in different ways.

Base your content foundation on these three key actions: •• Define your over arching message •• Create 3-5 messaging pillars around which to have deeper conversations •• Map the pain points, messaging, keywords, hashtags

– to avoid delivering the right message on the wrong channel to the right person at the wrong time.

Map your audience with right social media channels and your goals to avoid using a hammer to do a screwdriver’s job.

– so you have instant relevance.

Customers don’t want to buy what you have to sell – they want to relieve pain points and exploit opportunities. However, sometimes they don’t even know where to start or the questions to ask. Three key tips to ensure your brand resonates with your audience: •• Listen to your customers, industry and category buzz to infer key pain points to help you understand how to solve them.

Use them to ‘tee up’ your value proposition in your copy and graphics.

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3. Build A Messaging House

4. Define Your Channel Roles And Responsibilities

2. Define Your Audience And Their Pain Points

•• Solicit your sales team, your feet-onthe-street sources, to feed your content development in real time.

•• Leverage your real-time listening to develop audience profiles – complete with keywords, hashtags, calls to action, etc. - to develop customized content.

5. Find The Content Watering Holes From Which Your Customers Drink – so you can meet them on familiar conversational grounds.

It’s easier to fish where the fish are, instead of digging a new fishing hole, filling it with water, finding fish to stock it and then trying to catch them. Finding current and ‘greenfield’ content connection points makes it easy to develop an authentic relationship using your messaging as the conversation starter.

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6. Define Your Measurement And Learning Plan

remember the story you told. So, think about telling your story in the tweet, in the blog, and in your white paper – at every touch point.

– so you can evolve the messaging and content strategy.

•• Use a reach-engage-refer measurement model

9. Manage Your Strategy As An Integrated And Informed Supply Chain

•• Map each key piece of content to each customer touchpoint to understand if it reaches engages and refers customers to the next step

– so you can manage raw materials, production, and hand-offs.

•• Understand how to optimize your content and distribution before you deploy it 7. Find Your Brand Voice And Tone

Managing your content strategy like a supply chain enables you to manage and scale efficiencies - listening, measurement, copywriting, graphic creation, channel management, monitoring and responding to your engaged audience.

– to show your customers you are someone to do business with... instead of something.

10. Socialize And Sell Your Strategy

It’s easy to show your customers that you understand their pain points – with facts, figures and benefit statements peppered in your messaging. However, it’s another thing to connect with them with an authentic and humanizing voice, so you build trust and relationship.

You may believe in your strategy, but others may not. Make sure they do, or your strategy will never get off the ground.

8. Develop The Story You Want To Tell – because customers remember stories, not statistics.

Authors Chip and Dan Heath state that after a presentation, 5% of the audience remembers the facts and figures presented - and 65%

– because no one will use it unless executives sponsor it, and the field easily adopts it.

Building a content kingdom is not easy.

Rome was not built in a day, and neither was a successful content strategy. Content is king, as long as the kingdom is interested.

Follow these ten steps to lay the foundation of your content kingdom.

Gerry Moran Global Head of Social Media and Content Marketing | Cognizant Gerry Moran has been helping brands run better and customers feel at home for over 25 years by building some of simply the best social media, content and marketing strategy for brands like SAP, HBO and IKEA! He’s also worked for award-winning digital agencies and taught as an adjunct Marketing professor for over 12 years. Gerry is now the Global Head of Social Media and Content Marketing for Cognizant, where he helps companies run different - by delivering engaging content on engaging channels in engaging ways. He can always be found on Twitter and Instagram - @GerryMoran - and on his social media and marketing coaching blog (link below).

www.MarketingThink.com

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Creating A Viral Sales Engine Through Branding Kristin Luck

You’re struggling with sales. It’s ok to admit it… you’re not alone. Scaling sales is the number one challenge most businesses face, and the least discussed. Whether you face challenges driving lead generation, responding to incoming leads, staffing a sales team, or determining sales compensation, sales likely takes up a lot of your head space.

In truth, we make sales much harder than it has to be.

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Although I work as a sales and marketing strategist / growth hacking pro, I don’t come from a traditional sales background.

I haven’t attended any formal sales training, I’m not “Sandler certified” and I wouldn’t call myself a “salesperson”. So how have my startups and business ventures achieved incredible success, largely without any kind of formalized sales team in place? Often, as owners or managers, we get so focused on the idea of a formalized sales team that we miss the basics behind what DRIVES sales - the brand. Brand awareness and brand loyalty are key sales drivers.

Brand awareness and brand loyalty are key sales drivers

I was once asked, “If you had a dollar to spend on your business, would you spend it on sales or would you spend it on marketing.” I don’t think the two practices – sales and marketing – can be separated and pitted against each other. This division of marketing and sales is a common mistake I see in many firms.

The marketing team functions separately from sales and, in some unfortunate cases; the sales teams treat marketing as an afterthought or a nuisance. In my experience, there is nothing as time-consuming and expensive as muscling through sales without the help of a solid marketing practice to drive brand awareness and, ultimately, lead generation.

Why is a solid marketing practice so paramount to company growth? Anyone familiar with Lean Start Up principles (the growth hackers Bible!) knows there are three engines of growth for businesses:

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PAID I call this the traditional sales and marketing model – throw money at either sales hires or paid advertising to grow the business STICKY Focus on retaining existing customers and growing them VIRAL Create brand energy and growth through word of mouth and other non-traditional (ideally, free!) marketing strategies If you’re a business owner, you may have been advised to focus on one engine of growth at a time. If you’re trying to go viral, make your product sticky, and pay for customers, it can get very difficult to figure out what’s working and actually driving growth. However, I’ve successfully utilized both sticky and viral growth engines simultaneously. And I think you’ll find that working both to grow your existing customer base, while driving new customers virally can easily be accomplished with little overhead.

Companies often resort to “paid” growth models because they simply don’t know any other way to attract new clients. But hiring a sales team and paying for advertising requires a significant monetary investment that isn’t an option for many firms. Viral growth strategies, which can also drive “sticky” growth by creating brand evangelists among your existing customer base, are generally inexpensive but require creativity and time.

Companies often resort to “paid” growth models because they simply don’t know any other way to attract new clients

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Here’s how I’ve implemented brand driven viral marketing strategies that drove sales and didn’t cost a dime (other than my time!).

Focus On Brand Positioning And Thought Leadership Whether it’s content-driven social media posts like this example from WordStream, or contributing to an industry publication (like Brand Quarterly!); generating thought driven content positions your brand as a “go to” in your vertical and drives lead generation. Do you think you don’t have anything mind blowing to contribute?

Activate your internal and external networks to generate topics of interest.

Clients as brand evangelists are an unparalleled sales force

clients are more than willing to assist. Ask clients for quotes you can use in marketing or sales initiatives and to co-present on webinars or at industry events. In general, prospective customers are more likely to be swayed by what existing clients say about your business - not what you say about your business. Clients as brand evangelists are an unparalleled sales force. Don’t ever underplay the importance of word of mouth to drive sales.

Give To Get Build your sales pipeline by developing content driven relationships with organizations or individuals that promote your brand. Offer to curate or moderate a panel discussion at an industry event.

Nervous about getting on stage? Guest edit an industry publication or offer to blog at an event. Getting out and in front of people and starting conversations that attract attention and energy to your business is a powerful driver of brand awareness. I’ve even managed to align myself with editors and conference organizers in “pay to play” situations by offering something of value, be it time, connections or content, in exchange for branding.

Think Of Creative Ways Your Unique Brand Strategy Can Thwart Your Competition Create Your Own Army Of Brand Evangelists Utilize your existing clients to evangelize your brand. Often we’re too shy about asking for market validation, in most cases, happy

At Decipher, we rolled out a market research survey software solution in a highly competitive marketplace with well-funded incumbents – and without the help of a formal sales team. It was a struggle at first.

Replacing existing reputable solutions from

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larger brands was a lot more challenging than we’d anticipated, and we’d underestimated the pain points behind switching platforms.

Namely that transitioning software platforms, required so much ramp up time that clients would have no choice but to license two platforms simultaneously in order to transition without a disruption to their business. An expensive proposition!

Rather than flounder, my partners and I brainstormed a solution that activated our brand promise and drove a viral marketing campaign. It promoted a plan that allowed prospective clients to use our survey software free of charge for up to a year while they transitioned from their current platform to ours. This “Beacon Transition Plan” was so wildly successful that it was perceived as a substantial threat to our competitors. As a result, no industry publication or organization would work with us to publicize the program for fear of backlash from the behemoths we were competing against. Better yet, the “Beacon Transition Plan” didn’t cost us a dime to implement (there was little overhead associated with the transition time) or promote through the viral marketing channels we utilized.

Create Emotional Attachment Through Authenticity Some of the best brand strategies drive growth through the use of emotional attachment. Take, for example, the rise of Bernie Sanders as a 2016 Presidential candidate in the US. The #FeelTheBern grassroots campaign plays off of Sanders own authentic brand, and Sanders is proving to be a formidable opponent to campaigns funded by Super PAC’s and the infamous Koch brothers. Ironically, Sanders reputation as a stable and honest individual is a consistent emotionally driven “brand” message that was in place before many of his supporters were born.

You may have guessed by this point that the real secret to creating a humming viral sales engine is creativity. Determine your unique brand strengths and creatively exploit them.

Is a viral brand strategy a replacement for a formalized sales practice? Not necessarily.

But when a traditional sales team is absent due to financial constraints or a lack of access to sales talent, a viral marketing strategy can be effectively utilized for brand activation that drives growth.

Some of the best brand strategies drive growth through the use of emotional attachment

Kristin Luck Sales And Marketing Strategist, Growth Hacker Kristin Luck is a growth hacking consultant and serial entrepreneur specializing in nontraditional sales and marketing strategies. She is a regular contributor to both the commercial (Fast Company, Forbes) and academic press (Research World, Journal of Brand Strategy) and is consistently ranked as one of the top sales and branding experts to follow on Twitter. Kristin most recently served as a partner and President/CMO of Decipher. She currently serves as a strategic growth hacking consultant in the marketing measurement industry.

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People still judge a book by its cover.

Does yours match your brand story?

Brand | Design Implementation

Brands: Think Globally, Act Locally Shama Hyder

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“Think globally, act locally.�

That phrase, when it first emerged among environmentalists in the 1970s, meant something very specific: to enact positive environmental change on a large scale, each of us must take environmentally responsible steps in our individual www.BrandQuarterly.com

homes and communities. After all, it’s not that helpful to donate money to save the rainforest if you’re not even recycling in your own home.

The phrase was a meaningful one, and it helped ignite the environmental movement as we know it. But it has

applications far beyond saving the planet. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that “think globally, act locally” should be a mantra for those of us in the digital marketing and branding worlds.

Here’s why.

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Technology Has Allowed Us To Celebrate Both Our Global And Local Communities In Unprecedented Ways

Don’t waste your time trying to figure out what will go viral in 15 different countries

As social media has given us more and better ways to share our identities with the world, a kind of paradox that many have noticed is taking place: rather than becoming more homogenized, we’re becoming more individualized. Differences - or, more honestly, the characteristics that make you, you, or that make your neighborhood your neighborhood - are celebrated as loudly and often as are the vast commonalities that we humans share.

‘Humans of New York’ is an amazing example of this seeming contradiction. By spotlighting specific people with a portrait and a quote, photographer Brandon Stanton gives us a glimpse into both the deeply personal and the truly universal. And people love it. So far, Stanton has released three bestselling books of his photographs and stories, with his first one, Humans of New York, remaining on the New York Times bestseller list for 28 weeks.

The lesson here - besides the fact that there is truly no substitute for authenticity in branding - is similar to the one that first-year writing students hear day in and day out, “write what you know”. Don’t waste your time trying to figure out what will go viral in 15 different countries. Instead, work with what you know - your brand, your product, your community and then do something that expresses those things as authentically as possible.

Local Ideas Can Go Global In A Matter Of Hours Ever heard of (or seen) the “Before I die…” murals? They’re huge chalkboard murals with the heading “Before I die…” and tons of blank spaces for passers-by to fill in their thoughts and dreams.

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The murals’ origin is in New Orleans, where artist Candy Chang painted an abandoned wall in her neighborhood with the template in 2011. Her neighbors’ reaction was warm and immediate, and the wall was quickly filled with hundreds of personal responses.

Since then, “Before I die…” murals have popped in cities all over the world, from Europe to Australia, and all across the U.S. Or how about the ‘Little Free Libraries’? These tiny book exchanges, housed in boxes just a bit bigger than a birdhouse, are placed in people’s yards for passers-by to take or leave a book. The idea started in Wisconsin in 2009 and has spread across the country and the world - now there are Little Free Libraries in South Africa, Malaysia, Belgium, and Russia, just to name a few spots.

Granted, these ideas took longer than a few hours to spread because there’s considerable offline work that goes into creating a mural or building a tiny library. But ideas like the Ice Bucket Challenge, the insanely successful peer-to-peer fundraising campaign for ALS, or the Harlem Shake craze, actually do spread like wildfire in a few hours.

What “Act Locally” Is Really About Is Giving People A Sense Of Belonging, Plus The Chance To Express Their Identities.

Something I’ve been very interested in lately is what we marketers can learn from indigenous tribal cultures. The answer is, more than you’d probably expect. From our earliest history, we humans have needed community in order to construct our identities. The only thing that’s different today is how we fulfill that need - our

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communities nowadays exist in the virtual space as well as physical, and instead of tribes, we have work colleagues, industry networks, volunteer groups, and more.

The best marketing campaigns are the ones that not only recognize this truth but actively nurture it. The Ice Bucket Challenge, for example, created a strong sense of belonging among its followers, as videos of people taking the challenge popped up all over our Facebook feeds.

Another wildly successful campaign, the #OreoSnackHack, encouraged people to

share their personal favorite ways to eat an Oreo. Tons of ideas were shared, including crushing Oreos on top of ice cream, dunking Mini Oreos into a French press full of milk…the #OreoSnackHacks were endless. Again, the foundation here was encouraging people to share something that makes them unique—in this case, that something was simple as how they consume a popular cookie.

So the million-dollar question becomes: Are your marketing efforts recognizing these truths?

Shama Hyder Founder and CEO | Marketing Zen Group Shama Hyder is founder and CEO of the award-winning Marketing Zen Group, an integrated online marketing and digital PR firm. She is also an international speaker, bestselling author, and a regular media correspondent for major networks ranging from Fox Business to Bloomberg. Connect with Shama on Twitter @Shama, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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It’s basically like search engines have a crystal ball, but a miss is as good as a mile

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Let Me Put It In Context For You… Travis Wright

It’s basically like search engines have a crystal ball, but a miss is as good as a mile.

In other words, clearly we’re not there yet and even though technology is advancing at an astounding rate, being “close” doesn’t mean we’re actually close at all.

Psst, want a peek into the future?

It’s pretty simple - it’s all about context.

We’re on the way, but picture this: Search engines truly know which articles, blogs, memes, and videos you’ll love the most. They’ll send you these recommendations, but don’t worry. It’s nothing like spam. It’s all relevant, helpful, and right up your alley. That’s because search engines understand how you and content relate, in the right context.

Today, users have to start at least typing a query to get search engines to think.

Search engines that think, well before the user ever signs on, are what we need. It would consider your whole life, such as your browsing history, connections and calendar, then drum up recommendations that are 100 percent customized.

Basically, search engines could become your assistants.

And it’s much closer than you think!

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Hold Up What’s keeping search engines in the dark right now?

There are three big hurdles, starting with the inability to customize data that’s siloed.

Data that’s held in silos, such as social media platforms, can’t be turned into truly helpful connections. It’s not centralized, and there’s not a single source analyzing that data, which means non-thorough connection understanding. Network tech needs to improve so that relationships can be analyzed.

Consider this: Does every single Facebook profile currently and accurately showcase a person’s background, skills, and interests?

Probably not. In many cases, people filter what they choose to share on the certain networks. Personally, my personality on Twitter is different from how I am on Facebook, which is totally different than how I act on LinkedIn. On Facebook, I’m a complete smart-ass. On Twitter, mostly professional and I share a ton of links to great articles and resources. On LinkedIn, I’m buttoned up and strictly professional.

You’ll need to combine that data on multiple platforms to get the big picture. Also, remember that people and keywords are one and the same according to today’s search engines. Social media dominates at collecting data, but thus far it’s only been used to foster a closed system.

People and keywords are one and the same according to today’s search engines

Marketing technology is getting up to speed; soon the search engines will be there, delivering you content based on the context of your search. This will inevitably change some content marketing strategies for many companies.

Take It Personally Todays’ page rankings aren’t customized - they’re standardized, for the most part.

Search Metrics recently released its yearly report on search ranking factors. Definitely check it out for more clarity on what is working right now in your part of the world.

When you are logged into Google, depending on a few factors, your search experience in your location, may not be the exact same search experience as mine in Kansas City, Mo, USA. There are many factors that currently drive page rankings.

For example, if someone queries “cool” in Google, Google doesn’t know if the user wants recommendations on air conditioners, advice on how to get popular, or to see the weather forecast. The results are standardized given the limited customized data available. If the page rankings get personalized, the results will be a better match.

Have Strictly Contextual Relationships

The Personalization Revolution There are many tools out there that are aiding in this personalization revolution. Optimizely recently released a new platform that helps 30

you give your web visitors a better, more personalized experience. Ensighten has a personalization engine that drives content delivery based on the context of the visitor.

Adobe has Target, which enables this, as well.

So does the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

From a business perspective, it can mean finding the most useful lead - or not.

It’s context that will get us to this point.

Context-rich tech is already making its way into the market, such as Crystal Knows and Charlie. And a newcomer to the scene

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is Broad Listening, which is a platform that listens to your tweets, and gives you a personality score, based on several algorithms. Artificial Intelligence is empowering personal relationships.

Google’s getting there too, of course. They just acquired Timeful back in May. However, before we fully arrive at this next step, we need three things: Maximize network

intelligence, create profiles that work on every platform universally, and get to know users on a semantic level.

Are you in, or does adding context to the search mix sound a little too Big Brother-ish for you? For me, the pros just might outweigh any cons.

Travis Wright Chief Growth Officer | MediaThinkLabs LLC Travis is a marketing technologist, consultant, keynote speaker, entrepreneur, data & analytics geek, tech journalist, startup growth hacker, and stand-up comic. He is the former global digital and social strategist at Symantec for the Norton brand. Over the past 15 years, Wright has helped hundreds of B2B & B2C companies, from well-funded start-ups and SMBs to Fortune 10. He is also a columnist at Inc. Magazine and has given 50+ keynotes since 2013. Wright travels and speaks globally to company executives on digital media and social business strategies for marketing, sales, and talent acquisition. As a MarTech consultant, he helps them build their own ideal marketing technology stack that deliver ROI.

www.traviswright.com

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Get Over Yourself And Know What You Don’t Know Jeffrey Hayzlett

Have you ever gone to a new restaurant and thought, “Wow this place is amazing”? You continue to visit your new favorite restaurant for a few years. But then more people start to catch on to its greatness, and suddenly the hole-in-the-wall you loved is overcrowded and over-priced. While it’s good news that the business is continuing to thrive, if they do not continue to evolve, success will be short lived.

I have seen it too many times; after small and ongoing successes, people walk around like that is all that matters: to sustain that success. That’s when you lose awareness. Losing a sense of awareness is about more than losing perspective.

I sometimes go fishing in a remote area of Canada accessible by driving across the border to a floatplane where we meet our host, Trapper Bob. We stay in his cabin, and he regales us with stories as he drinks his scotch. On these fishing trips, the menu is a bit sparse but it always includes a particular blueberry jam, which I love. It comes in a can, and it tastes amazing. The first time I had it, I kept thinking, “Blueberry jam in a can! It tastes great, and it comes in a can, which is so unusual.” The only time I have ever eaten this Jam is on Trapper Bob’s fishing trips. I had never seen this unique Canadian jam in the U.S. A couple of trips later, still smitten with the jam, I bought a case of it before we drove home. While the jam itself wasn’t too expensive, I paid a fortune to ship it back to South Dakota. “Who knows how long this stuff will be around?” I thought. “I want to share it with my closest friends and family.”

My wife, Tami, saw the case of jam when it arrived, gave me the “Jeff-what-the . . .” look, and then asked, “Why did you do that?”

I proceeded to explain to my wife that this jam was the best jam in the world and only made in Canada. It was the holiday season, so my plan was to keep 12 cans for us and give the rest away as gifts. “Who wouldn’t be thrilled to receive a can of special Canadian jam?”

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Tami said nothing, and over the next couple of weeks I kept my promise, doling out a can apiece to relatives over the holidays like it was caviar - telling each one the story of where the jam comes from and how special it is. Tami mocked me every time I did, but she didn’t understand. I knew how special this jam was.

Soon after I had started handing out my precious cargo, Tami and I were in our local supermarket, when she started in on me about my jam again. I had had enough. I turned to her and lectured, “You just don’t know what I know, Tami, so you don’t understand how special this is. I’m the connoisseur, and you obviously can’t appreciate that. When we find something like this, we should treasure it and be thankful we can have it while it lasts. You need to act.”

Tami interrupted me with a knowing smirk and pointed behind me. As you have probably guessed, when I turned around there was the Canadian jam - cans of it covering the shelves of our supermarket. For two bucks each.

Just because you don’t believe something is possible doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Just because you don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Losing perspective leaves you unconnected to what is happening now and the things you should know to act on.

If you stop really looking at your surroundings, you could miss something big: When did that building go up? When did the Wilsons paint their house? When did that giant display

Just because you don’t believe something is possible doesn’t mean it isn’t true

of my precious Canadian jam appear in my supermarket? When did I lose my most loyal customer? Don’t ever let this happen with your brand. Never stop learning. Never stop researching or testing.

A brand is nothing more than a promise delivered. As marketers, it’s our job to deliver that promise and to notice if we are failing short.

The best way to stay aware is to constantly ask questions of yourself and others: What are the trends and the things I don’t know?

What are the key attributes of my business?

What do I suck at, and what don’t I know?

Use questions like these to stay aware and adapt to highlight your strengths, overcome or transcend your weaknesses, and beat the competition.

I speak a lot about thinking big and acting bigger, but it’s not about thinking that you are big and walking around like you know better.

That way lies Jeffy’s Jam. Get over yourself – now - and know what you don’t know!

Jeffrey Hayzlett Author, Primetime TV and Radio Host, Chairman | C-Suite Network Jeffrey Hayzlett is a primetime television host of C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett and Executive Perspectives on C-Suite TV, and business radio host of All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett on CBS on-demand radio network Play.It. He is a global business celebrity, speaker, best-selling author, and Chairman of C-Suite Network, home of the world’s most powerful network of C-Suite leaders. Hayzlett is a well-traveled public speaker, the author of three bestselling business books, The Mirror Test, Running the Gauntlet and Think Big, Act Bigger. In 2015, Hayzlett was inducted into The National Speaker Hall of Fame.

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Nominate Your

Celebrating those evangelists, innovators and visionaries who eat, sleep, breath and embody their brand.

Nominations Are Now Open For Brand Quarterly’s 2016 ‘Brand Champions’ List!

Nominations Close 12th January 2016 NOMINATIONS OPEN TO ALL: Your Brand Champion could be a marketer, a salesperson, in customer service, a member of the C-suite, designated brand spokesperson, or frontline staff - as long as you believe they embody their brand.

Have a Brand Superhero in mind? Help give them the recognition they deserve:

www.BrandQuarterly.com/nominate

Past The Glass Ceiling: Where To Go When You’re “That Good”…

Lori Ruff

We want to be great at what we do.

So much so that we put our heads down and work hard and rarely come up for air to take in anything outside of our area of expertise. We’re so focused, we become experts in our field and wake up one day realizing we’re alone.

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Branding, localization, other very specialized areas of marketing… there are not a lot of CxO or SVP jobs for these specializations. Where do we fit? Once we’re great at what we do, where do we go? Who listens to us?

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We, our projects, and our budgets are often at the mercy of decision makers who have little idea what it takes to get the job done and done well. If you’re in that place, without a real voice or real control, I’m going to offer you three impactful ideas you can immediately implement to effect change in your professional sphere.

Take note: you can’t have much success changing other’s minds if you’re not willing to make some changes yourself.

So let’s get started.

You can’t have much success changing other’s minds if you’re not willing to make some changes yourself

The point is; we have to get good at what we do. People you work with and for want to support you, yet you don’t recognize the praise because it’s not what you wanted.

Talking about your desires is like unscrewing the bolts holding your glass ceiling in place.

Every time you share your goals with a new mentor, sponsor, superior, or colleague who might open doors, you’re effecting a breakthrough for your own success.

Talking about your desires is like unscrewing the bolts holding your glass ceiling in place

1. What Motivates You? You have to know what motivates you - what you care about - and share that with others.

If a raise or promotion is important to you, let your supervisor know and drop it in conversations when appropriate. If leading your own team or having control over your work is important, talk about those things too.

In short, what motivates YOU to success?

How do you want to be recognized?

A new yet seasoned associate at one of the “Big Four” accounting firms asked during her onboarding interview how long it typically took to make partner. The response was four years. She completed the interview, sat at her desk and thought about that. She went back and knocked on the door of her new boss. “What would it take for me to make partner in a year?” The gentleman had never been asked that before yet he invited her in to sit down and talk it through. It was going to be tough; still they determined it would be doable. So she went back with her promotion

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plan in hand, shared it with her husband, and elicited his help in making it happen.

She made partner in 16 months, faster than anyone had ever done so before.

2. What Motivates Others?

You also have to learn what motivates others - what they care about - listen and find ways to help them reach their goals. If a raise or promotion is important to them, let their supervisor know and drop it in conversations when appropriate. If leading their own team or having control over their work is important, talk about those things too.

You’ve likely heard the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

This essentially says: treat people the way you want to be treated. Have you ever given someone a gift that was unappreciated? You put a lot of thought into it. You liked it a lot.

It was something you would have loved to receive. Yet the recipient didn’t feel it was worth as much as you because, in reality, it wasn’t what they really wanted.

In contrast, the Platinum Rule states: “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.”

This is the foundation of living that level of

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In a specialized field, your entrance to the C-Suite is all about the relationship brand you portray about yourself

The Platinum Rule states: “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.”

relationship excellence. Treat people the way they want to be treated; help them achieve the things they want to achieve. And help them help you in the same way (see point #1), and you will begin to see consistent forward progress toward your career aspirations.

When you approach every relationship, new or existing, with a desire to bring value first without worrying about reciprocity, you develop deep, lasting relationships with people. These people become your own community of loyal advocates and influencers who naturally feel good about you and want to find ways to help you in any way they can.

It might be through the way they talk about you, the doors they find to open for you, the opportunities they share with you. I promise you will see the increased awareness of you as a respected professional individual grow in your sphere and beyond.

Does that make sense? In a specialized field, your entrance to the C-Suite is all about the relationship brand you portray about yourself.

What do people think and, more importantly, feel about you when you’re not in the room?

If you speak openly about your goals and find ways to help others reach theirs, you will be sought out for your expertise and the value you can bring to the table. You will be tapped because you can be trusted. You will be offered opportunities you hadn’t considered because someone else sees something special in you that you had not recognized about yourself.

3. Make It Stick This advice you can take to task. Think about what you want; write a reminder for yourself and post it at your desk where you can see it every day: more importantly, where others might see it and take the opportunity to ask you about it. It won’t be long before the screws of your glass ceiling begin to loosen and come out.

Lori Ruff Chief Branding Officer | ALPFA Chief Brand Strategist and Evangelist for ALPFA - Association of Latino Professionals For America, Lori Ruff is a Top 50 Connector on LinkedIn and long-standing authority on attracting loyal communities. She is a LinkedIn Ambassador and Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencer. Ranked #7 Social Media Power Influencer Woman by CEO World, Pew Research & Neilsen, she is a Top 100 Community Manager, American Genius Beat Top 50 Industry Influencer, WE Magazine’s Top 101 Women in eCommerce, Moody’s 50 Favorite People, and #Nifty50 Top Women Writers. Her latest of eight books are “Keep it Real” and “Suite Branding: The Ultimate Personal Branding Guide for Today’s Top Performers”.

www.loriruff.com

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BQ Insider is an opportunity for you to meet the faces behind Brand Quarterly’s biggest supporters, our Brand Benefactors, and gain access to their valuable insights. In this edition, we talk with:

Mirko Holzer Chief Executive Officer and General Manager BrandMaker GmbH

Both prior to and during his studies in computer science at the University of Karlsruhe, Mirko was involved in projects to develop individual software applications. In 1999, building on his previous experience, he founded what would become today’s BrandMaker GmbH together with Sven A. Schäfer. Since then Mirko has focused his efforts on Marketing Process Optimization and Marketing Resource Management.

Let’s hear Mirko’s thoughts on MRM, SaaS, Agile Marketing and the past, present and future of the Marketing Technology industry…

BQ - Aside from cloud computing, what are the most impactful changes you have experienced in the marketing technology industry since starting the BrandMaker journey back in 1999?

Mirko In the beginning marketing technology was not an industry. There were some tools that supported dedicated tasks in marketing.

Since then, however, marketing has become very technology-driven, with thousands of

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solutions for each and every thing. Look at the marketing technology landscape at chiefmartec.com and you’ll know what I mean.

Today, the goal is to integrate all steps within the marketing process in one platform: planning, budgeting, creation, distribution, adaptation, analytics, and so on. Now we are able to depict continuous workflows, provide all-inclusive dashboards, and integrate external service providers on a common tech platform.

This is all the more important since a range of information and process silos have established themselves in organizations due to the explosive increase in channels - with separate responsibilities and tools, service providers, reporting and so on for each communication channel. However, this causes brand inconsistencies, so the pendulum is now swinging back: The aim is comprehensive planning and success monitoring as well as ensuring the agile allocation of resources for all the different channels and campaigns. Integrated platforms and dashboards have only just started out on their triumphal march. In the years to come, they will disseminate fully throughout the entire advertising industry.

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Mirko Holzer Chief Executive Officer and General Manager BrandMaker GmbH

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BQ - What steps do you recommend companies take to ensure their brand and marketing system enables, rather than restricts, marketing agility and creativity?

Mirko -

Mirko Here, again, the principle that every single system should follow applies: Instead of the system prescribing the business model, technology should reflect the business model of the user. Especially in any enterprise with a decentralized sales structure and a widespread presence in a number of regions, including chains, franchisees, regional representatives, local distributors, and partners, the question arises as to the degree of freedom with which the relevant local entities should act. Should local communication consist merely of the exchange of addresses or should an on-site decision be made about which products are to be promoted with which prices?

Technology must reflect this framework and enable its efficient implementation.

Instead of the system prescribing the business model, technology should reflect the business model of the user For example, compared with the offerings of American providers, we Europeans have unusually - a real advantage: The adaptation of central brand communication for local markets and the enabling of the individual adaptation of content by decentralized sales organizations are concepts that have a far longer tradition in Europe than in the US. This might be one of the reasons why Gartner’s analysts have positioned us as a leader in their magic quadrant for MRM systems for the fourth time in a row.

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BQ - What advice would you give to CMOs looking to ‘pitch’ the investment in an MRM system to their CFO?

Marketing induces relative insularity in many companies. Comprehensive MRM systems allow silos to be broken down and marketing to be integrated seamlessly into the corresponding corporate processes. For example, the data relevant for marketing from Product Information Management or ERP systems can be exchanged, used, and processed cohesively. This is the only way for the controls and transparency required by the CFO to be achieved, at the same time as ensuring maximum advertising appeal (effectiveness) and brand consistency (reputation management) with the lowest possible use of resources (efficiency).

This is all the more important when we bear in mind that agile marketing is now the order of the day. For example, budgets and marketing activities are no longer executed on a yearly basis; instead, they are planned by the quarter or month so they can be modified to respond to reaction in the marketplace.

Lean processes and appropriately tailored tools are vital prerequisites for this.

BQ - In your experience, what are the benefits of supplying an SaaS product versus a standalone software package?

Mirko The basic advantages for clients of SaaS naturally also apply to marketing technology: High operating safety and data security, a solution that is always available in the latest version, no efforts for installation and maintenance, no investment in hardware and infrastructure etc. However, in the case of marketing technology, the most important advantage might actually be this: For

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corporate IT departments, marketing often plays a subordinate role and is not placed towards the top of the list of priorities. In many cases, the use of SaaS enables the implementation of a solution without having to wait for the availability of IT resources.

This simply means that faster results can be achieved.

From the vendor perspective, that means increased scalability and shorter sales cycles.

SaaS solutions are more adaptable to mobile usage and allow vendor companies to be agile in their response to changing marketing conditions.

BQ - What do you believe are the most important factors for companies to consider when reviewing potential MRM systems?

Mirko As mentioned before, a holistic approach and integrated solutions are the basis and the precondition to work with one repository of consolidated, consistent data and to stay in control. This is even more applicable if we consider the enormous challenges we face as part of the digital transformation. If, for newsletters, displays, SEM, social media and other tactics, separate tools are always used, and if the various teams work in parallel with their own data and without any connection to the other teams, it is nearly impossible to achieve any synergies; instead, both efficiency and control are lost. For this reason, planning, budgeting and success monitoring for all channels must be brought together into a single environment. Content and digital assets must be available centrally regardless of the channel being used to present them.

And so on.

Furthermore, the boundaries between marketing and sales will become increasingly blurred in the years to come, as will the lines between marketing platforms and CRM

systems. So it is important for the MRM system to acknowledge this transition and provide an easier path to integration.

BQ - From a marketing technology standpoint, what do you think will be the next major step forward in the industry?

Mirko In the future, we’ll have to think less and less in terms of “channels”. Due to the increasing dissemination and use of social media and mobile devices, marketing content will be present in an “omnichannel” form - wherever you are and whenever you want it.

On the other hand, this omnipresence means that the relevance of content is more important than ever. If you haven’t really addressed your audience’s needs, then your voice will not be heard or - even worse - the communication goal you desire will not be achieved. Therefore, it will not only be necessary to distribute content as widely as possible in all channels and to analyze what recipients do with it, but there will also be a need to perfectly customize and personalize the communicated content aligned with the different recipients.

This omnipresence means that the relevance of content is more important than ever And last but not least: In these days of increasingly commoditized services and ever-shorter product cycles, the brand is more important than ever - this means that the old issue of branding will continue to accompany us into the future, now supported by technology as well!

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Mastering The Forever Transaction Robbie Kellman Baxter

Every company strives to build greater engagement and loyalty with customers, because customer lifetime value drives revenue and profitability. Ideally, our customers are committed to our brand, and no longer consider substitutes.

We are seeing more and more consumers establishing these “forever transactions� with their favorite companies, agreeing to subscription payments and sharing of personal data in exchange for a promise of huge value.

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Technology is extending the infrastructure of trust, making it increasingly easy for organizations to establish relationships across time and space. We all, as human beings, strive to belong. We want to be recognized and held in high regard by our peers. Organizations can provide this sense of belonging and esteem, driving customers to become members, truly committed to the brands they love.

How can an organization create a “forever transaction” and have their best customers join the brand instead of just buying the brand? The answer lies in the Membership Economy. The Membership Economy is a massive trend that is changing the way organizations connect with their customers.

It’s about access over ownership - think of grabbing a car for the hours you need it a la Zipcar vs the hassle of owning a car, or Spotify instead of your own music collection.

But it’s also about a trusted relationship where the customer feels known and recognized and expects candor, integrity and continuous evolution from the organization.

In exchange for a deeper relationship, customers are willing to pay forever, and stop considering other options.

In exchange for a deeper relationship, customers are willing to pay forever, and stop considering other options

What if everyone was that willing to evolve products to stay relevant?

Invest In Onboarding New Customers For Forever Transactions The transaction is the starting line, not the finish line, in your relationship with customers.

Optimize their early interactions to ensure they get an immediate benefit and make your offering part of their daily routine. People decide in the first few days after purchase whether or not they’re going to use what they’ve bought. Take Kurbo, the weight loss app and program for kids, for example. It has games to engage kids in behaviors that will drive weight loss, and rewards them for learning the principles of healthy eating to drive usage until the natural outcome (weight loss) can take effect.

The transaction is the starting line, not the finish line, in your relationship with customers

Love Your Customers More Than Your Products And Services Your whole organization needs to be focused on the constantly evolving needs of your target customers as it relates to your mission; as well as the changing possibilities regarding how to create, package and deliver that mission.

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For example, the AARP’s mission is to improve the quality of life for Americans over 50. One of their initiatives was to develop a tablet device for seniors since none of the major manufacturers was willing to do so. When I asked what they’d do if Amazon responded to the new product entry by immediately launching a Kindle for seniors at half they price, the AARP team said they’d be happy - because the mission was being achieved.

Create A Culture That Values Retention More Than Acquisition Mastering the forever transaction depends on a core culture that is focused on the long term. Many companies pay lip service to the importance of loyalty while rewarding

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team members for new customers, logos and building awareness. But retention drives referrals, learning and lifetime customer value.

The best organizations start at the bottom of the sales funnel. They make sure their customers can give feedback, get support from their peers, and learn about new ways to get value through new and existing products or services.

Consider Many Tactics To Master The Forever Transaction

Through their huge Dreamforce conference, their innovative MVP program for their most loyal customers and their online community, Salesforce.com has developed such a culture. And through it, enjoys loyalty from their customers that is often greater than the loyalty their customers feel toward their own employers.

1. Organization

Every one of us knows that loyalty matters.

We understand that it works for both the customer and the organization. The hard part is the HOW. Here are a few places that I look to identify tactics to help organizations fully join the Membership Economy.

Rethink people and processes to support forever. Salespeople should be rewarded for lifetime customer value, not new logos.

Language should talk about members, not customers. Mission should drive product development. And so on.

A vendor gaining greater loyalty than an employer? That’s something to emulate!

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6. Technology

The acquisition funnel should actually be an hourglass, with revenue growing after the point of transaction

Technology is for everyone. Just as you expect employees to be able to communicate verbally and in writing - you should expect them to be fluent in the technologies that help them strengthen the value you provide to your customers, forever.

2. Funnel The acquisition funnel should actually be an hourglass, with revenue growing after the point of transaction.

3. Onboarding Onboard members so they can be successful!

4. Pricing Pricing should be clear and make it easy for buyers to buy. Think about what would be in your customer’s best interest and bundle that together in a way that continues to deliver on the value promise forever, not just for a moment in time.

7. Customer Success Finally, invest in your customers’ success. Be willing to keep changing your products and services to keep them happy, and make sure they know. Keep creating new opportunities for your engaged customers to increase engagement, while catching the disengaged well before they start looking for the cancel button! Don’t confuse intertia for loyalty.

Keep creating new opportunities for your engaged customers to increase engagement

5. Free(mium) Consider how free might fit into your model.

Maybe free is a way of driving awareness and trial. But it could be valuable as a driver of a network effect, increasing the value for existing members with each new member.

Or maybe your freemium members, the ones who get a subscription for free forever, are actually bringing in new members, serving as a channel for viral marketing, as with SurveyMonkey or Hotmail.

Loyalty doesn’t come cheaply. It requires a commitment to continuous innovation, a culture that treats customers like members, and an emphasis on retention. But organizations that optimize for engagement, as opposed to chasing the transaction, will find success and profitability in the long term relationships they develop.

Robbie Kellman Baxter Founder | Peninsula Strategies LLC Robbie is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a management consulting firm, and author of The Membership Economy, an Amazon #1 Hot New Release in 6 categories.

Before starting Peninsula Strategies in 2001, Robbie served as a New York City Urban Fellow, consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton, and a Silicon Valley product marketer. Quoted or published in major media outlets, including CNN, Consumer Reports, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and most recently NPR, she has an AB from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Her clients have included Netflix, SurveyMonkey and Yahoo!, as well as dozens of smaller venture-backed companies.

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Brand Identity: Making The Transition From Old To New Andrew Vesey

So, it’s time for a new look.

Taking the time to develop an appropriate and authentic new brand identity, then ensuring your brand management systems are up to scratch are both vital to long-term success. But what of that step in-between? The unveiling, the launch, the kick-off - whatever you want to call it, the transition period between your old and new brand identities will have long lasting impact its success.

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First impressions are important when your brand is ‘meeting new people’ and this is amplified when reintroducing yourself to your current ‘friends and family’. Those within your brand’s sphere of influence will, consciously or subconsciously, adjust their opinions and expectations of your brand – and those most loyal can have the biggest reactions. Some will love it, some will loathe it, and a few others just won’t care.

We all want to temper those negative reactions and even swing a good portion of them into the positive. So, when transitioning

to a new brand identity, explaining WHY is key.

Whichever transition method you choose, no matter how big or small the change, clarity in the reason behind the change is vital.

Confusion is a killer for a rebrand.

A merger, acquisition or organizational restructure is an obvious reason for an identity change. Love or hate the new Google identity, there is clear reasoning behind it.

Almost every person I have spoken to that dislikes the Google rebrand, has told me that they understand why they made the change, but it’s just not their style. There

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are, of course, devout loyalists who believe in everything Google, so you know they are going to love it. But instead of just sitting back and enjoying the fandom, Google have given those brand evangelists more fuel for their fires.

“Google is amazing, Google is great. Did you see the new brand?? It looks awesome - and it’s so on-point! Perfectly executed.

And exactly what was called for with their restructure. Did you know blah, blah, and so on…”

The negative effects have been lessened, and the positive reaction is heightened, all by answering that simple question – WHY? Now, I know we’re not all Google, or even global-spanning enterprises with a multitude of divisions, companies or industry sectors, so mergers, acquisitions and restructures may not be on the table. That’s fine.

There are plenty of other good reasons to implement a new brand identity.

A business sale and purchase is treated the same as an acquisition; a change in your product offering may spark a need for change; perhaps it’s an outdated, now disconnected brand from the 90’s. Whatever your reason for change, explain WHY in a clear, concise and easy to share way. No reason for the change? Oops – maybe you shouldn’t have wasted resources on a rebrand just for the sake of it.

Oops – maybe you shouldn’t have wasted resources on a rebrand just for the sake of it

that a majority of hybrids and nuanced variants are based off. These options are ‘The Big Reveal’, ‘The Timetable’ and ‘The Evolution’ – each option a valid choice. A choice which should be informed by your brand’s situation.

The Big Reveal Trumpets sounding, fireworks - the big reveal is an event. Everything changes at a set time, on a set day. The benefits of a (hopefully) crisp, clean transition and a specific point in time to focus all of your promotion and brand education on are very appealing. On the flip side however, to be completed successfully, a reasonable lead-time is required, and a lot of resources will be needed up front.

One big ‘shock to the system’, then smooth sailing from there – that’s the goal here.

There is less confusion and a much shorter time period to educate about the change.

Once the rebrand has been implemented, the focus is on reinforcing the new image rather preparing people for more change.

Having a set ‘event’ also offers stronger promotional opportunities around it. Teaser campaigns, product/service promotions linked to the change and powerful ‘this is the date the world changes’ PR are all open to you.

The Timeline

Moving past the question of ‘WHY?’ we get to the questions of ‘HOW?’ and ‘WHEN?’. How will this image transition take place? When will it begin (and end)?

As the name suggests, the transitional period for the brand is controlled by set, timed stages. A common reason for this is spreading your investment over a number of financial periods. Remember, there’s a lot more to a rebrand than just the design – you need to replace everything too. The reveal is also staggered, allowing for a quick change to the core branding if required.

With every brand’s situation being different, let’s cover the three most common options

The Timeline method acts in a similar way to The Big Reveal from a design and production

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standpoint. The major differences are in the customer facing side of things. Instead of waiting three or four months for everything to be ready, the first part of the brand identity reveal happens once it is ready for ‘consumption’. This staggered approach can greatly reduce the lead-time, but with a tradeoff of a longer transition (and risk of brand identity confusion).

Done well, with appropriate customer education, a brand refresh on a set timeline can be reasonably seamless. And as you reach each stage in the transition, you have another valid reason to keep in touch with your customers. Teaser campaigns and product/service promotions are also still at your disposal; however the law of diminishing returns comes into play as you move along the implementation timeline.

The Evolution Sometimes an instant or speedy transition isn’t the order of the day. Previously, this has often been the result of budget constraints or overwhelming logistical issues. However, as the rise in agile marketing and branding philosophy continues, we are seeing the evolutionary method being used more in an experimental manner.

The more agile or evolutionary your brand is as a whole, the more applicable this option can be. It even opens up opportunities to get customer feedback on brand reiterations,

offering a door into the wonderful world of co-creation and real brand ownership for loyalists. Be warned, however – a long, drawn our brand evolution can easily lead a brand to lose its way (again and again) without clear guidelines, structure and an overall vision.

Whether you use one of these transitional methods directly or take a hybrid approach, remember to answer the question WHY? An answer to that question should be available the moment you first announce any plan for a brand identity refresh. In the first press release, the first mention of it on your website, the first time your employees and stakeholders hear about it. Explaining WHY is a very powerful tool for getting stakeholder buy-in. And while not necessarily as vital, explaining WHY you are transitioning the way that you are can also be of benefit – more so internally for ‘The Big Reveal’ and externally for longer term transitions.

So be prepared to answer the question of why you’re changing your identity and choose a transitional method that fits with your brand, your organizational structure and any constraints you may be under. It’s (kind of, almost) that simple.

Your new identity will be given the best opportunity to succeed, and with it, so will your business as a whole.

Andrew Vesey Chief BrandMan, Founder | Vesey Creative & Brand Quarterly Andrew is an experienced brand and marketing professional with over 15 years in the industry - a majority of those have been as the Chief BrandMan at Vesey Creative, which he co-founded in 2003. In 2011, driven by his passion for branding, business and education, Andrew made the move into publishing by launching Brand Quarterly - this very magazine and in 2014 Brand Quarterly Online. When not writing or developing partnerships and new initiatives for Brand Quarterly, Andrew works with a select number of clients - spanning the globe, from New Zealand through to the United Kingdom and the United States - developing, refreshing and implementing brands for both products and companies.

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Amplify Your Social Selling Strategy And Increase ROI Melonie Dodaro

Social selling… or as I like to refer to it “relationship building” has become a necessary tool for sales professionals, but to do it right is a bit of an art form.

Never before has there been a time where your prospects have had such access to information. Information that will shape their perception of your business, your competitors’ businesses, and ultimately, their buying decision.

Thankfully there are a number of strategies and tools that you can use to help you locate potential prospects, provide value to them and then earn the right to have a conversation with them.

Remember, even in a B2B sales environment, you are selling to people, not businesses. With this in mind, you need to find, connect and build relationships with the people responsible for the purchasing of products or services such as yours.

While this takes time and effort, it is something that can be accomplished in an efficient and effective way, using a proven lead generation strategy on LinkedIn. You can take this a step further and amplify your social selling efforts by combining your LinkedIn activities with Twitter and email marketing.

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Start With LinkedIn LinkedIn is the key tool to successful social selling. With over 380 million global members, LinkedIn will give you un-gated access to the decision makers in your target industry. In fact, LinkedIn: •• Is utilized by one out of every three professionals in the world •• Is the #1 channel to distribute content •• Drives more traffic to B2B blogs and websites than any other social media platform

Increase Your Reach And Effectiveness With Twitter Twitter is the perfect tool to compliment your LinkedIn social selling activities.

•• LinkedIn is considered the most effective social media platform for B2B lead generation Further, LinkedIn dramatically increases the effectiveness of your sales efforts and shortens the length of your sales cycle. With it you can: •• Locate potential prospects •• Research prospects •• Connect with prospects •• Build relationships with prospects •• Stay top of mind with clients and prospects •• Stay organized with its built-in CRM tool •• Position yourself as an authority on your topic and in your industry In short, LinkedIn is the ultimate relationship building platform.

The secret to successfully using LinkedIn for social selling is to have a repeatable strategy that keeps you on task and on track while reaching out and building relationships with your prospects. To be efficient you want to have a checklist that includes the activities you will do daily / weekly to further your sales goals, and move your prospects through the social selling funnel.

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While this will vary with each individual and company, there are a number of activities that you should be doing daily. Check out the infographic on the following page, for a sample of what activities you may want to consider incorporating into your daily social selling efforts.

With over 316 million monthly users (about 100 million active daily users) that resulting in more than 500 million tweets per day, there is a good chance that some of your ideal clients are actively using Twitter.

So what are they using Twitter for?

Many people use the platform as a news source or to follow the brands and businesses they are interested in. In fact, 74% of people who follow SMBs, follow to get updates on products. These people are also more likely to visit the company’s website and make a future purchase.

This makes Twitter a powerful platform for you to not only locate and do research on potential prospects, but it is also a great place to continue the relationship building process.

Finding And Researching Prospects On Twitter There are a couple of great ways to find potential prospects on Twitter. One simple method is to locate accounts for your competitors or for businesses that would sell to a similar market and go through the list of people who follow them. The downside of this method is that the bigger their list of followers, the longer it will take for you to go through the list looking for the right individuals.

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Source: Top Dog Social Media

A more targeted approach would be to search for hashtags and keywords related to your business, products or services. This will bring up a list of people who are specifically talking about the topic you are searching. While you will likely find many industry experts (and competitors) in this list, you will also find potential prospects.

You can also use Twitter to learn more about the prospects already on your list. Simply type in their name (or better yet their Twitter ID if you have it) and look for them amongst the list of results.

If there are multiple people with that name and you are connected to them on another social media platform, you can compare profile images from both platforms. Once you have found the appropriate person, you will want to check out their profile. Look at their cover and background image, as this can give you insight into who they are. You will want to read their bio and check out what they are tweeting.

From this, you can often glean information about things that you share in common and what is important to them. Make sure to take notes and add these to the ‘notes’ section of their LinkedIn profile.

Building Relationships On Twitter Once you have identified a potential prospect on Twitter and done your research, use what you have learned about them to participate in existing conversations that they are a part of. If you have already had some form of conversation with your prospect on another platform, you can further that conversation here as well.

In your conversations, you can share resources that they might find helpful, but these resources should include nothing that pushes your products or services on them. Keep in mind that it is vital that your participation makes sense and adds nothing that could be perceived as “salesy” or a pitch.

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It is vital that your participation makes sense and adds nothing that could be perceived as “salesy”

Provide Value And Stay Top Of Mind With Email Marketing Email marketing is another way to amplify your efforts with social selling.

When you send out your ‘thank you / welcome’ message to your new LinkedIn connections, you can include resources or a free offer that you have created. Ideally they will need to sign up for your email list to receive this freebie.

You can also share this resource on your LinkedIn profile, the occasional status update or on Twitter. By sharing it in these places, if you have created a resource that your market finds valuable, you will get people who you are not already connected to signing up for your list. These people are often highly targeted prospects.

Once they are a part of your email list, you will be able to stay top of mind. Continue to invoke the law of reciprocity and further increase your image as an industry expert by providing consistent value in the form of your newsletter. You may want to include one or two offers discreetly within in your newsletter (banners often work well) for those who are ready to take action. You can also send your list emails about events you are attending or hosting as well as the occasional offer.

BEWARE: If you send more offers than valuable information, people will ignore your emails and quickly unsubscribe from your list.

By incorporating these strategies into your social selling campaign (new or existing), you will greatly amplify the effectiveness of your efforts and shorten your sales cycle.

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The most important thing to remember is that during this process, your goal is to build relationships and provide value, NOT to sell. Selling comes later, once you have

established a relationship and have earned the right to a conversation, whether in person, over the phone or on Skype. That is where the sale happens.

If you have done your job well up to this point, the sale is the next natural step in the progression of the relationship.

Your goal is to build relationships and provide value, NOT to sell

Melonie Dodaro Founder | Top Dog Social Media Melonie Dodaro is the author of the #1 international bestseller The LinkedIn Code. She is also the founder of Top Dog Social Media, an agency that helps businesses, sales teams and professionals use LinkedIn and social selling to boost their visibility, attract new customers and increase their revenue. Dubbed by the media as Canada’s #1 LinkedIn expert she is highly sought after internationally as a LinkedIn and social selling speaker and trainer. To learn more about Melonie visit the Top Dog Social Media site (link below).

www.TopDogSocialMedia.com

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Benchmarking Loyalty Programs: A Call For Consistency Mark Johnson

As a marketing tool, loyalty programs are used to attract and retain the long-term business of consumers. If run well and constantly updated, they keep consumers returning, encourage them to spend more, and provide a unique competitive differentiator for brands seeking creative customer engagement angles.

Increasingly, loyalty programs are also leveraged as data collection mechanisms that illuminate valuable customer behaviors and attitudes, with the hopes to simplify the discussion and add value to both the brand and the consumer.

These are all important goals, but it is also imperative for brands to consider how well a loyalty program is actually accomplishing them. Just as it is crucial for a loyalty program to produce deeper insights into customer behaviors, it is essential for brands to apply the same level of scrutiny to measure the efficacy of the program itself. Internal and external benchmarks, metrics and standards are imperative to short, medium and long-term success, yet they do not exist.

This is one of the most overlooked and challenging aspects of managing any loyalty program, and it continues to be a struggle for brands to leverage such benchmarks with any consistency. Everything is changing so fast now, and brands need to be able to understand how much a loyalty program is contributing the success or growth of the business at any given moment.

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But the larger problem is not in convincing brands that they need to answer these questions, the real struggle is in first developing the mechanisms to create consistent benchmarks, especially external ones.

Currently, there are few metrics out there for brands to measure on. Those that are in the market are vaguely understood and rapidly changing both temporally and situationally and by whom is selling or pitching the “solution.”

This is what we continue to hear from brands.

Marketers know, for example, what their direct mail open rates should be, they understand what kinds of response rates emails should garner, but customer loyalty has not yet reached that level of industry scrutiny. The complexity of what technologies make up the program is challenging and complicates the end game.

Marketers may have internal benchmarks, and they might know that their loyalty program members spend more than nonmembers. Or they can do some basic control and A/B testing. But they don’t necessarily have any external market-wide metrics to use as a baseline, to gauge the overall efficacy of the program. They know that members of the program spend more and are usually more engaged than nonmembers, yet measurement across verticals and industries is challenging.

This is one of the major challenges facing brands and administrators of loyalty programs today. These metrics, or loyalty program “health guides,” simply don’t exist in any comprehensive or standardized manner.

Some benchmarks do exist for various third party vendors or technology providers that administer programs on behalf of brands.

But these organizations are self-serving to a certain degree. They can leverage their own internal benchmarks to gain insight into how their clients measure against each other.

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Or they know what various clients can do based on an ability to do creative, or program design, or re-administration. Outside of that particular sector, however, most brands are lost and mystified.

Brands are really struggling with regard to what they should invest in, how new technologies work (in piecemeal or in total), what comprises a loyalty program and, in many cases, how to even define one. Is a loyalty program just the database itself? Is it the analytics program and how it interfaces with a campaign management tool? Is it the social data? What if you have two or three or three of four, and then add incremental functionality?

Traditionally, customer loyalty has always been hard to measure. But now it has become significantly more complex.

Customer loyalty has always been hard to measure. But now it has become significantly more complex Merely putting a program in place is not enough to ensure success in this regard.

Brands that simply complete this initial step and neglect to take it any further are, more often than not, only submitting to a “me too” mentality. That is, they feel that they should have a loyalty program only because the competition has one. But that line of thinking negates the true value and potential that a loyalty program holds.

More investment needs to be made, and loyalty programs need to be constantly monitored. In light of constantly emerging technologies and continually evolving customer behaviors, brands need to know if there are areas in need of significant improvement and how it stacks up against the competition.

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As we have all seen, technology changes at an astounding rate, and customer behaviors, attitudes and perceptions are just as fluid and dynamic. Therefore, the industry also needs benchmarking standards to ensure that loyalty programs maintain a high degree of relevancy.

That’s why the lack of standardized industry metrics continues to be a problem. Whether you’re talking about retail, hotel, or restaurant, it is currently difficult to understand how one loyalty program measures up against another. All programs and administrators are struggling in this regard.

Such a standard could help brands understand what they are looking for in a loyalty program, and different customers may be seeking different things. Are they looking for experiential rewards? Are they looking for points? Are they looking for thresholds?

Furthermore, brands must consider if the rewards, benefits, and offers are relevant and meaningful. Brands need to know and intimately understand all of this information.

Because ultimately, if customers don’t care then what’s the point?

If a program is designed by one consulting firm, it could be benchmarked by A, B and C. If it is designed by another firm, it might be benchmarked by X, Y and Z. This can also be further broken down by customer channel. If your loyalty program is just in-store, for example, the metrics of those top 10 customers would be different from the customers who engage online, through a catalog, or even through social and mobile devices.

Ultimately, if customers don’t care then what’s the point?

Benchmarking can, and must, help in this regard. Loyalty programs used to be all about frequency and monetary spend, but the goal now is also to understand the customer more closely, and that requires more data and deeper insight.

Brands can, of course, benchmark internally.

The challenge here, however, is that it only represents a brand against itself. Any larger perspective outside that isolated bubble is lost.

Going forward, there simply needs to be a way for brands to gain more consistency. There needs to be consistency in definition, in terms and in measurement.

The lack of standardized benchmarks and industry metrics makes all of these variables very difficult to measure. Brands are struggling with knowing what benchmarks they should use, and this gets back to listening to the customer and in truly understanding what they find meaningful.

This is one of the defining marketing challenges today.

Mark Johnson CEO & CMO | Loyalty360 As CEO & CMO of Loyalty360, Mark Johnson is committed to bringing loyalty to the forefront as a critical marketing strategy. To further this goal, he has created an unbiased, market-driven clearinghouse and think tank for loyalty providers. His finger on the pulse of what’s happening in loyalty, Mark is driven to give members the expert insight and guidance they need to develop strategies and implement programs that effectively engage their customers and employees and build stronger relationships with them. Mark has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.

www.loyalty360.org

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2015 Celebrating And Learning From Experience Following on from last year’s hugely popular list, we are proud to bring you the 2015 edition of your ‘50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50’. This list, composed entirely from (a record number of) nominees submitted by our readers, sees many familiar names and a number of new entries in the mix.

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Each of the Marketing Thought Leaders highlighted on the following pages, have a wealth of experience and knowledge to share; and have gained the respect of their peers through their words, actions and achievements, in print, in person and online.

Combining their well-deserved recognition with added value for our readers, we asked each finalist to share what they believe marketers need to focus on moving forward.

Thanks to each of the 50 experts on this year’s list, for taking the time to share your insights!

And for our readers who would like to hear more from this fab 50, you can easily keep up-to-date with them by following our ‘50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50’ Twitter List HERE. So without further ado… please join us in congratulating:

Brand Quarterly’s ‘50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50’, for 2015

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Colin Shaw Founder & CEO | Beyond Philosophy Marketers need to embrace the fact that Customers are irrational. In a bland world where everything is the same, to many marketers still focus on Porters 4P’s.

Marketers need to recognize that human decision-making is far more complex than this. They need to elevate their thinking to the new science of behavioral economics.

This shows us that customers make irrational decisions, and this affects what they buy. It is only by doing this that they will break the glass ceiling that is encaging them.

Joel Comm CEO | Joel Comm, Inc. Live video streaming is the new blogging, and brands that engage using these powerful apps and tools will be able to engage with their audiences in new and powerful ways. Meerkat, Periscope and LIVE for Facebook Mentions provide an opportunity to broadcast content to the masses. And tools like Blab.im allow brands to create fresh live content and build community.

Don Peppers Founding Partner | Peppers & Rogers Group Consumer power is now being realized through ad-blocking software. Allowing them to opt out of advertising audiences either altogether or selectively, and new services (like Airpaper) that will even make the phone calls required to unsubscribe them from their cable service, and so forth. Over the next few years, we will see the launch of many more such “consumer take charge” solutions. So watch out. Consumers will now be having their revenge, and it’s not going to be pretty!

David Meerman Scott Marketing & Sales Strategist | Freshspot Marketing LLC I’m fascinated by the convergence of sales and marketing on the web. Today buyers dictate how they choose companies, products, and services with online content driving action. The difference? Marketing is when a company communicates to many buyers at once while sales is communicating to one buyer at a time. Both are optimized through great content and real-time connection.

David Mathison CEO | CDO Club We’ll see more digital marketing professionals emerge as leaders in their organizations.

A good example is Linda Boff at GE. She was previously Executive Director, Global Digital Marketing, and was recently promoted to CMO. Expect to see more widespread adoption in the F-500 of titles reflecting this trend, such as Chief Marketing Technologists, Chief Digital Marketing Officers, Chief Digital Officers, and Chief Data Officers, as companies realize the strategic value of data in decision-making.

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Brand Quarterly’s ‘50 www.BrandQuarterly.com Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50’ - 2015

Lee Odden CEO | TopRank Marketing Data Optimization - It’s time to turn big data into useful insights for better customer targeting and experiences, optimizing tactics and ad spend. Integration - Customers engage across channels, so marketers need to integrate between mobile/desktop, online/offline to “be the best answer” where buyers are. Democratization of Content - Self-directed buyers require credible, useful content, so marketers will scale by co-creating content with influencers, staff, customers and their community.

Marsha Collier President | The Collier Company, Inc Looking over the horizon for new developments is a habit. In this age of transparency, rather than looking to sparkly objects, spend more time deciding what we are doing now for brands and their community. Make a conscious effort to genuinely have 21st century “best practices” in place. Marketing is different, be sure your message connects with today’s customer. Begin to use visual search technology; find occurrences in social platforms through image recognition to expand consumer reach.

Jeffrey Hayzlett Radio & TV Host, Chairman | C-Suite Network For the last few years, everyone has been talking about Big Data, but I want to talk about hyper-personalization. That is to know my customers even better than they know themselves and to treat them like royalty. I have been saying over the last year that if content is King, activation is Queen, and context is the Kingdom. There are so many tools at our disposal to be able to serve your customers the way they want to be served.

Ted Rubin Social Marketing Strategist, Keynote Speaker, Acting CMO | Brand Innovators More executives need to embrace digital channels as a way to lead by example because there’s no turning back the clock to stay in our comfort zones. Social media is deeply embedded in the lives of most people you do business with every day.

For companies to stay competitive, social engagement must become a top-down strategy. Those who adapt to social engagement will drive more business and stay competitive - those who ignore it will not. #RonR... #NoLetUp!

Cheryl Burgess CEO and CMO | Blue Focus Marketing Storytelling is the future of brands. Leaders who rise above the noise to make their messages heard will become memorable. In the social age, everybody has something to say, but it’s how you say it - and who you say it to - that will truly capture imaginations. Leaders must understand what their brand stands for - their mission, vision, and values - and capture that story in a compelling, easy-to-digest way. Next, they must spread their story far and wide - starting with their brand’s social employees.

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Jeff Sheehan President | Sheehan Marketing Strategies The emerging era of #1to1, or more commonly known, personalized marketing is what needs to be paid attention to. We’re all faced with an on-going content tsunami, where it’s critical that only targeted and excellent quality material be produced by marketers. If it’s not, it will most likely be filtered out. In a 140 character world, people have limited attention spans and can’t be bothered if it doesn’t personally appeal to them. Long gone are the days of mass marketing messages!

Alan See Principle and Chief Marketing Officer | CMO Temps, LLC More employees will begin to realize that their personal brands truly have great value. Smart employers will recognize that an employee’s value or business net worth is more than just their job title, but is influenced by the size and strength of their individual networks. This subtle yet powerful shift in the employer-employee relationship will influence both corporate and personal branding strategies for the next several years.

Gary R. Schirr Associate Professor | Radford University I think that Volkswagen will be in the news all year, as regulators make a political decision whether to force VW into bankruptcy. Partly as a result, “brand integrity” will be a focus in 2016. Be honest! Brands that may be a bit too aggressive, such as Nike and Facebook, should be careful in this environment. Video storytelling will be the communication medium of focus in 2016 for both B2C and B2B enterprises.

Companies will learn to tell their stories on YouTube, Blab, and Twitter video.

Janet Fouts Digital Marketing Strategist | Tatu Digital Media Live-stream video is re-invigorating community online. Apps like Meerkat, Periscope and Blab allow us to have live conversations with our networks. In the old days, live-stream was a broadcasted show and people could comment on the side, but that was pretty much it. Now we can join in the show as well as comment and these apps are integrated with other platforms too so we can gain a large audience quickly via viral sharing. Powerful stuff!

Terry Brock

MBA, CSP, CPAE

Supreme Commander (why not?) | Achievement Systems, Inc. Marketers need to pay attention to the clutter and overwhelm that is happening today more than ever. This is more important than any “shiny new object” of the moment. Present clear, compelling messages that help people and you’ll do very well whatever happens.

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Deborah Weinstein President | Strategic Objectives Marketers must develop an authentic brand voice to cut through the clutter and resonate in a meaningful way with consumers. Engaging with the right people, at the right time, on the right platforms, in the right way will get your brand message across and drive acceptance, affiliation, advocacy, and sales.

Paul Greenberg Managing Principal | The 56 Group, LLC The alignment of sales and marketing might be the most important 21st century development, even though not as sexy as its digital cousin. Companies worldwide are realizing that to meet the needs of a 21st century customer, they have to align objectives, decide on common definitions, set up jointly approved content and work together toward revenue results. Marketing becomes not only the 1st line of engagement, but drives content throughout the course of an opportunity.

Trevor Young Founder & Chief | PR Warrior Marketers need to ensure they don’t get too besotted by all the tools and technology platforms that emerge with alarming regularity, promising ‘silver bullet’ solutions.

Technology is not going to save us, but humanity might. Sure, dig deep into the data, leverage conversion tools and automate where necessary, but do so from a foundation based on human connection, respect and empathy. Pay attention to the tech, but don’t under-estimate the power of utility, generosity, transparency and heart.

Adrian C. Ott Author, CEO | Exponential Edge Inc. The Internet of Things (IoT) will enable marketers to deeply understand what customers do versus what they say. Tracking habits and behavior via sensors will generate exponential volumes of data that will present unprecedented challenges and opportunities for CMOs. Marketers need to separate the wheat from the chaff with analytics that are actionable, timely and relevant. They will also need to be mindful not to cross the “creepiness” line and alienate customers when collecting daily data.

Kent Huffman Fractional Chief Marketing Officer | KentHuffman.com In 2015, you should already be implementing responsive web design, mobile payments, social advertising, remarketing/retargeting and owned content. You may have even hired a marketing technologist or built a marketing ops team. In 2016, you should consider experimenting with agile marketing, as well as augmented reality, social payments, visual storytelling, democratized content, native advertising, hypersegmentation, hyper-personalization, micro-targeting, and biometrics.

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Kirby Wadsworth Chief Marketing Officer | Mendix Millennials pay for experience rather than things. Live small, dense, and downtown.

Work at home/virtual, always online, constantly sweeping, instantly bored, multiscreened, and are constantly checking with trusted others. Millennials accept interruptions only in context with the experience of the moment. They are will soon be controlling billion dollar budgets. We must adapt by offering fresh, in-context, relevant and helpful content. The key is Digital. The time to drive Transformation is now.

William Mougayar Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist | Virtual Capital Ventures Two points. 1) The new kid on the block is the blockchain, that mysterious protocol behind Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. It is creating new business models with decentralized users, and that will present marketing challenges for reaching those decentralized markets. 2) Too much emphasis on automation and customer communities is making marketers forget about brand building. It’s like doing marketing with one hand tied behind your back.

Ardath Albee CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist | Marketing Interactions, Inc. The trend in marketing that concerns me is the declining relevance of content to our buyers and the effectiveness of our content marketing programs. Recent research conducted by Forrester found that 65% of business decision makers found much of the content supplied to them by vendors useless. Marketers need to make understanding their buyers and customers a top priority. And they need to use that information to drive the relevance of their content strategies if they want to prove performance.

Jay T. Deragon Management Consultant, Digital Strategist | The Relationship Economy The only thing we need to pay attention to is things that matter. Empowered consumers expect real-time answers, seamless experiences and value-added utility from their suppliers rather than over promised performances and hyped up messaging pulling them into disconnected and disorganized organizational experiences. The organizations ecosystem has to create valuable moments that matter at and during every engagement. Great companies aim to create great experiences.

Joel Warady Chief Sales & Marketing Officer | Enjoy Life Foods It is not uncommon to hear words such as “transparency” and “authenticity” as companies and brands develop their marketing strategy. But for most, these are simply buzzwords that exist because they’re currently on trend. For companies to survive and, in fact, thrive, instead of buzzwords, these traits have to be in the DNA of the organization, and this starts from the top down. The focus on consumer/ customer and a meaningful, honest dialogue with them, is tantamount to success.

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Drew Neisser Founder and CEO | Renegade, LLC. Mobile ad blockers are yet another signal to marketers of their primary issue consumers are sick of tiresome ads polluting their media and will go to extreme lengths to avoid mere messaging. Unless brands can transform their marketing into a service of genuine value, consumers will reject their messages and rejoice in their defiance. Value can be delivered in many forms like a timely article rich with useful facts, a helpful app or a smile-inducing video. The rewards are transformational.

Susan Borst Director of Industry Initiatives | IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Focusing on digital advertising, among the many areas that marketers should be paying attention to, I’d like to highlight, in no particular order, six areas: 1. The shift from served impressions to viewable impressions 2. Advances in programmatic 3. Efforts to reduce fraud 4. Taming the Wild West of Mobile 5. Native Advertising (Disclosure is not negotiable) 6. Enabling digital video to reach its full potential.

It’s an exciting and evolving time for digital advertising!

Mark Burgess President | Blue Focus Marketing Social employees are the new marketing channel. Consumers are tired of traditional ads. They want to be engaged - and with social media, they can be. In the digital bazaar, social employees are the new marketing channel. Authentic brand ambassadors invite stakeholders into conversation, authentically engaging rather than selling. Many brands have already proven the value of social employees, but there is still room for growth. The key is an investment in your workforce - and a little trust.

Lynne Jarman-Johnson Chief Marketing Officer | Consumers Credit Union We need to be smart and thoughtful in all we do. Keeping data personal and relevant while bringing an intimate connection to individuals who do business or partner with us is critical. We must use data in the smartest of ways. Communication vs Targeting.

Listening vs Re-Targeting. Finally, all the new technology tools in the world are only as good as the training we receive to make them sing. Marketing success is listening, communicating and educating across all parts of our organizations.

Shaun Smith Founder | Smith+Co What the VW scandal teaches us is that when executives start paying more attention to creating value for shareholders than they do customers, it all goes horribly wrong.

I think it is time for brands to get back to basics and define their purpose; why they exist, which has to be to create value for their customers. If they do that, they will create value for shareholders and if they do so in a way that does not harm society, they will be able to sustain it longer term.

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Tony Zambito Creator of Buyer Persona | Tony Zambito, LLC Marketers are learning to distinguish between being customer-focused and developing deep customer understanding. The trumpet of customer focus, over the years, has emphasized putting the customer first. What marketers have learned is putting the customer first in an assumptive way does not always work. To truly enable marketing and branding to revolve efforts around the customer requires us to develop deeper customer understanding. We will see marketers allocate more resources to this need.

Laura Patterson President | VisionEdge Marketing, Inc. The 2015 MPM Study found that only 20% of marketing organizations can prove their contribution to the business in terms that matter to the C-Suite. To join the ranks of the Best-in-Class, marketers must be performance, process, and analytics driven. Marketers need to pay attention to how the BIC are transforming marketing into a Center of Excellence and institutionalizing best practices that improve the performance and increase the agility needed for achieving business results faster.

Vince Ferraro Executive Vice President and CMO | Attenditus Networks First, the world is quickly shifting to mobile-centric platforms, ads and video content.

The desktop/notebook is diminishing in ‘share of screen’. Our marketing services and solutions need to evolve (faster than we think) to a ‘mobile first’ customer experience and usage model. Second, is the fragmentation of the CMO role. As traditional roles of the CMO fragment into CRO (Revenue Officer) and CDO (Digital Officer), we need to look in the mirror and ask “why?” We may not like the answer.

Eric Fletcher Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer | Liskow & Lewis, APLC Marketers have an unprecedented opportunity to become distracted - by toys, tools and grand opportunities. A marketing leader can maintain focus amid the wonderland of big data and an explosion of distribution channels. Doing whatever it takes to connect with the right target(s), at the right time, with the right message.

Anything else diminishes ROI and does nothing to enhance the value of the brands for which we advocate.

Joel Book Principal, Marketing Insights | Salesforce Today’s consumers are increasingly demanding when it comes to how a brand engages and serves them. Customer Experience is Everything! And the most important trends fuelling the digital transformation are: • Mobile Search (particularly Local Search) • Social Listening for Customer Service and Lead Generation • Direct Response Advertising in Social Media • Growing the database of Email and Mobile Push Subscribers • Customer Journey Optimization • Online Content Personalization

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Larry Weber Chairman and Chief Executive Officer | Racepoint Global In terms of current industry developments, there’s nothing more important for marketers to understand than how to implement and integrate software. Moving forward, marketers need to pay close attention to software, marketing automation, influencer identification and analytics.

Jim Signorelli President/Founder | Story-Lab Brand transparency is the most important development that marketers need to appreciate and respect. As consumers gain more access to information, authenticity will become an even more critical component of survival and growth. Increasingly, both B2B and B2C companies will need to demonstrate values that resonate with their buyers - employee actions will be looked upon as proof of company promises.

As such, internal branding needs to become more integral to marketing.

David Polinchock Director of Marketing | AT&T Herb Simon said an abundance of information leads to a scarcity of attention. We are certainly seeing that lack of attention in the ad space today. Brands must focus on captivating the audience, not merely capturing them. We must create better experiences using the tools we have, so that ads have relevance, both in context and to the target audience. More than ever, we need to create the right value exchange, making consumers happy to have the personalized ad experiences we can deliver.

Kieran Hannon Chief Marketing Officer | Belkin International (Belkin, Linksys, WeMo) From an industry perspective, digital advertising is top of mind given the fraud potential around delivery. Scale via Programmatic Advertising can be compelling but has a number of inherent issues that need to be addressed now. That’s probably a top concern. On the other hand, the Internet of Things is recasting user experiences providing brands the ability to truly understand how consumers engage with their products and other brands. “Connectedness” is onmipresent in the brand experience.

Gina Carr Business Reputation Expert | Gina Carr International An evolutionary change is taking place in how buying decisions are made. It is the use of online review sites to make decisions about everything from where to get your tires changed to whom to choose as your baby’s new dentist. Organizations need to learn how to get more good reviews and fewer bad reviews. Marketers need to learn how to help clients amplify the good reviews and reduce the impact of bad reviews.

This single issue will have more impact than any other marketing campaign.

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Eric Weaver Principal Partner | Weaver Global Advisory Ad fraud has become the #1 issue marketers should pay attention to. Whilst trying to programmatically automate the delivery of the perfectly targeted ad to the highest converting customer; digital advertisers created a mechanism where ad stacking, image compression, zombie apps and clickbots will bilk brands out of an estimated £4.1 billion in 2015. Until this is fixed, marketers should rethink how their digital budgets are spent and consider alternative approaches to their audiences.

Brian Kardon Chief Marketing Officer | ThinkingPhones It’s a very noisy, cluttered world for consumers. Marketers need to pay a lot more attention to “engagement” metrics, not just “vanity” metrics. We all get excited when our content is shared, liked, followed. We are addicted to seeing that big spike in web traffic. The bigger the better, right? But if you care most about conversions, the strongest predictor is true engagement with your content: watching the full video, repeat visits to specific content, and session length, among others.

Norman Guadagno Senior Vice President, Marketing Strategy | Wire Stone There are two trends that are going to keep marketers awake in the near future.

First, the entire concept of ad blocking will set off a wave of change for marketers, consumers, and brands. There is a new battle ahead on what rights consumers have to choose when they are interrupted on their own devices. The second development that is critical is a coming shift towards a reassessment of “value delivered” by marketing. The more we measure, the more we expose the need for greater clarity.

Heidi Lorenzen Vice President, Marketing | Singularity University As marketing (thankfully!) continues its evolution to being increasingly personal, there are 3 developments to adopt now: 1) Strategies and campaigns that are more human (with values, emotions, empowerment, and co-creation at the core). 2) Technologies that make the digital customer experience more real (virtual reality isn’t sci-fi anymore). And 3) going beyond serving individual humans to enhancing society at large (build your brand on acts, not ads; create movements, not just products).

Loren McDonald Marketing Evangelist | Silverpop, an IBM Company Two of the hottest marketing buzz phrases are “content marketing” and “customer journey”. Neither of these two concepts are actually new ideas; however, it is key that marketers bring them together into a combined activity and process. Journey mapping sheds light on where brands are falling short in creating a great customer experience, but the process also can and should be translated into actual specific content and channels for each customer segment and step of the customer journey.

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David Newberry Consultant | Sococo Inc. Employee engagement - If a company does not win the hearts and minds of its employees, then it will not build an authentic brand with its customers. Marketing need to help every employee become a passionate brand ambassador. Social Purpose - Both customers and employees care more deeply about the values of a company and how well it lives them. CSR is now about Corporate Social Results, not responsibility.

Marketing need to invest in making a positive contribution to local communities.

Jeffrey Peel CEO | Quadriga Consulting Ltd Marketing is about gentleness and not over-selling. Digitally savvy consumers can see straight through over-claiming and tell-selling given the vast availability of information and competing channels. So, the result is that marketing should be honest, storytelling, and engaging. Without honesty and humanity, marketing tries to fool. Marketers should not treat customers as fools. Therefore, the biggest industry development is customers who simply won’t tolerate bad marketing.

Christine Moorman Founder | The CMO Survey, Sr. Professor | Fuqua School of Business, Duke University Marketers should work to develop better skills at experimentation. Digital marketing affords more opportunities to perform experiments quickly and easily. Experiments will always be the gold standard for assessing causality and with this type of control, marketers will be in a better position to sort out the effects of their actions on customers, competitors, and financial performance.

Saul J. Berman Chief Strategist & Vice President Global Business Services | IBM Cognitive! Our new study of 5,000 CXOs by IBM’s Institute for Business Value finds that the highest-performing companies place much greater priority on cognitive business capabilities. For example, cognitive allows advertisers to unlock previously unavailable insights hidden in their data. Cognitive system, IBM Watson, learns over time, so advertisers can course correct and refine their campaign strategies in real time. It’s about augmenting human intelligence, helping us think better.

Rick Miller Director, Data Solutions | Valid USA I continue to hear from CMO’s and CIO’s that their brands need to develop systematic approaches to the vast and disparate data they are gathering. A focus on best practices for master data management and data governance is an industry development that marketers need to pay particularly close attention to. This approach is critical in making a brand’s data actionable through advanced analytics, ultimately allowing them to deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right audience.

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More Popular Articles On BrandQuarterly.com How To Successfully Incubate Your Incubator Mark Payne While there’s PR value and cultural topspin in simply having an incubator, the point is to ensure you get more powerful pipelines and attractive ROI on all the resources you pour in. Here’s a short, sharp set of killer questions to help stir up meaningful, profitable change.

Four Ways CFOs And CMOs Can Partner To Improve Corporate Performance Woody Briggs Republican-Democrat. Mars-Venus. CFOCMO. Conventional wisdom holds that the two executives most at odds in the C-suite include the chief financial officer and chief marketing officer.

Yet conventional wisdom may be changing.

Stories Companies Tell: How Internal Stories Build Your Brand Fritz Grutzner Strong brands are built from the core with authentic, powerful stories. If the leaders at the center of the organization don’t know and live the brand story, how can employees be expected to deliver on it?

7 Ways To Turn Your Employees Into Brand Ambassadors Karin Hurt Great commercials, strong PR, a brilliant social media strategy all warrant effort when building your company’s brand. But there’s no better PR than an army of loyal employees living and breathing your brand.

You know the type – folks with enthusiasm bursting from their veins–talking up your products and services with their friends...

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Intentions Are At The Heart Of Every Brand Jay Deragon The leadership, culture and business model of a brand have never mattered more than now. It’s time to consider the “because effect” of your brand in the hearts and minds of buyers and the general public.

The term “markets are conversations” – originally coined by Doc Searls in the Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) – exemplifies the power of today’s digital world...

Getting Content Marketing And Sales Teams On The Same Page Valerie Levin Despite the consistent growth of content marketing ideologies - sales teams and content marketers are still failing to get on the same page. Content marketing and sales enablement must work together to end their perceived rivalry and forge a powerful partnership for business development.

Privacy Vs Security In A Big Data World Tamara Dull I still haven’t decided if Edward Snowden is a hero, a traitor, or a schmuck. I watched Citizenfour, the documentary that captures his story in real time, thinking it would help me figure it out, but I walked away liking him more and his actions less, and still not ready to hang a scarlet letter around his neck.

The Human Side Of Data Analytics Colin Strong One of the big challenges that any brand faces is how to leverage insights from the huge amounts of data they now typically have at their disposal. The promise of big data is, of course, compelling; McKinsey, for example, has estimated that a retailer using big data can potentially increase its margin by more than 60%.

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