ENGAGING MARKETING MINDS
VOL. 6, ISSUE 3, MAY/JUNE 2016
Marketing is a house of cards without compelling content
INSIDE
THE FALL OF THE STORY
JOSEPH A. MICHELLI ON THE MERCEDES-BENZ WAY
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TODAY!
JOIN SHAWMUT AND
IGNITE CREATIVITY
SHAWMUT IS COMMITTED TO GIVING BACK AND WE WANT YOU TO JOIN US! This year we’ve partnered with Raw Art Works (RAW) to help support the next generation of our industry. Located in Lynn, MA, RAW uses the power of art to inspire thousands of young artists transform their lives. They offer a variety of programs including visual arts, a print shop, film school, leadership development, and teen employment.
The students at RAW are the future of our industry. They are bright, talented artists many of whom go on to become marketers, designers, and print professionals. Visit ignitecreativity.today to join the cause and Shawmut will donate $5 to RAW. Share it on social and we’ll double that. And if you place an order with Shawmut by the end of the quarter we’ll donate 5% of the proceeds back to RAW.
Get Involved at ignitecreativity.today
Up Front Publisher’s Letter
FISH OR CUT BAIT
A
ccording to the Winterbury Group, almost half ($27.3 billion) of the the $59.5 billion spent in digital advertising in 2015 was dedicated to search engine marketing. Another $24.9 billion was spent on display advertising, which means that over $52 billion of the total spend was used on vehicles that don’t necessarily conjure up images of high quality. The idea that digital advertising is the path to the consumer these days is odd. Consider the number of marketers that toss out an endless amount of content just so their search results escalate. While many of them may believe in the constancy of the social post and the EVERY CHANNEL IS perceived low cost of social CRITICAL THESE marketing, these strategies DAYS, BUT BEING A may be cheapening their TRUE RIGHT-BRAINED brands as a result. Permission-based marMARKETER AFFORDS keting respects the fact that YOU THE ABILITY TO we as consumers don’t want RETHINK ALL brands invading our lives OF THEM. and making unnecessary noise. There are numerous brands that have made their name on mass appeal, but the organizations that endeavor for a more sophisticated persona demand a deeper connection and a more intimate way to engage. Every channel is critical these days, but being a true rightbrained marketer affords you the ability to rethink all of them. Print, for example, still is the only vehicle that can literally touch us. It lets your clients know that you put a little extra time into
your message, and it shows that you are investing in the relationship and not merely trolling for bites. Our cover story, "Stoking Creativity," is focused on the kind of thinking needed to make hard decisions and elevate your brand. Our second feature, "The Fall of the Story," delves into the unwanted content that is clogging up our lives and lowering the value of your brand. Both stories remind us that utilizing vehicles and people who want to inflate your brand is critical in these noisy times. Enjoy.
Warmest wishes,
MICHAEL PELUSO
In This Issue
Brought to you by: Shawmut Communications Group Shawmut Communications Group is proud to bring you Tactics, a bimonthly industry publication created by and for marketing minds. Founded in 1951—and now in its third generation of family ownership— Shawmut Communications Group provides an array of marketing, print, mail and fulfillment services to meet the needs of clients across all industries. With decades of experience, the Shawmut team is committed to helping clients market with relevance and communicate with excellence. Visit www.shawmutdelivers.com or call 978.762.7500 to learn more.
01 Publisher’s letter Fish or cut bait 02 The Inbox
04 Family Matters An inside look at why family-owned busi nesses remain vital By Michael J. Pallerino 08 The fall of the story Marketing is a house of cards without compelling content By Charles Lunan 12 Trending with... Bestselling author Joseph A. Michelli 13 What's your story Survey shows goals of content creation
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News | Updates | Statistics
– Under Armour founder and CEO Kevin Plank on the importance culture plays in the success of your company and your brand
INSIGHTS
The Inbox
Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Culture is everything. Culture is the brand."
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STUCK ON YOU
Survey shows the importance of customer experiences ince the days of the Mad Men, brand awareness has been the most important objective on a marketing to-do list. But according to Salesforce’s “State of Marketing” survey, things are methodically shifting toward customer engagement. The study, which surveyed nearly 4,000 marketing leaders worldwide, shows that 88 percent of marketing teams are starting to view the customer journey as the most critical goal to the success of their overall marketing strategies. Here’s a look at what today’s marketers deem as their top priority:
Brand awareness
Higher levels of customer engagement
Social media engagement
Other
UP ALL NIGHT WITH DATA Technology. Sensitive budgets. Silos. Pick an area, any area, and today’s marketers will tell you how long it keeps them up at night. The biggest nightmare of all? According to Dun & Bradstreet’s “The B2B Marketing Data Report 2016,” 75 percent of more than 500 B2B marketers surveyed say it’s finding accurate and complete data to achieve their marketing objectives. Crucial pieces of missing data that most often are missing include revenue (87 percent), employee (86 percent) and industry information (77 percent), the survey found.
Book Rec
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days By Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz
The percent of salespeople who think marketers spend most of their time on branding/events, rather than directly increasing the lead pipeline, according to the “Crack the Code of Sales & Marketing Alignment” survey from InsideView and Demand Gen Report. Interestingly, 26 percent of the marketers surveyed believe salespeople are a bunch of “mavericks.” The survey was based on data from 995 sales and marketing professionals based in the United States, most of whom work for B2B companies.
ou face tough questions every day: Where do you focus your efforts? How do you start? What will your idea look like in real life? How many meetings does it take before you can be sure you have the right solution? The formula rests in a strategy created by three partners from Google Ventures called the “sprint.” No matter what size your business is, coauthors Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz will walk you through the one-week “sprint” process they used at Google Ventures to help startups. On Monday you map out your process, on Tuesday you sketch out competing solutions, on Wednesday you pick the winning strategy, on Thursday you create a realistic prototype, and on Friday you test your idea with your target customers. Together, they have executed more than one hundred “sprints” with companies in mobile, e-commerce, healthcare, finance, and more. This practical guide to answering critical business questions is for anyone with a big opportunity, problem or idea who needs answers today.
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FAMILY MATTERS An inside look at why family-owned businesses remain so vital
L
BY CHARLES LUNAN
ook at the timeline the Peluso family put together recently to celebrate 65 years of doing business at Shawmut Communications Group, and you cannot help but notice a pattern. When the economy goes south, the Pelusos keep investing. In 1981, as the national unemployment rate headed toward double digits, the family expanded their printing plant in Chelsea, Mass. They did it again in the 1991 recession. In 2005, as technological disruption was triggering a wave of consolidation in the industry, the Pelusos relocated to a much larger building in Danvers, Mass. In 2008 and 2009 they moved forward with plans to add a machine in the pressroom in the midst of the worst recession since World War II. "This decision was difficult with the economy having such a downturn, but we knew we would see positive results with the right tools," recalls Michael Peluso, president of Shawmut, grandson of founder Ted Peluso, Sr., and one of four Pelusos from two generations now leading the company. "From 2006 to today,
we've quadrupled. We expanded two years ago and we are full again." The boldness displayed by Shawmut – and other family businesses that help define the landscape of today’s commercial print landscape – is no aberration, says John L. Ward, co-director of Kellogg’s Center for Family Enterprises and co-author of many books on family-owned businesses. Over the course of his career, Ward has found family businesses are more inclined to take advantage of negative economic conditions, because of their propensity to take a longer-term view than employee managers. “Family firms, because they are committed to the long-term future of their enterprise, realize that they can follow unconventional and particular strategies,” Ward says. “One example of that is to sustain
The printing business was inherently family-owned for years, and now the culture has changed and only the smaller shops are family-owned and the bigger ones are all publicly-owned." –MICHAEL PELUSO, PRESIDENT, SHAWMUT
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Stability, loyalty and trust that the family will do the right things are in the fabric of great family owners and the employees understand and value the culture that is created." – Ann M. Dugan, Managing Director, Headwaters SC, LP
investments in down economic times – be it R&D or new product development, or building company competences. Some buy struggling competitors in down markets or hire talent when others aren't hiring. Family businesses typically have little debt and operate conservatively to make such moves in down times possible.� Ann M. Dugan believes that family businesses make long-term decisions because they have to think not only about the generation of family involved today, but also the generations to come. "This long-term view precludes short-term decisions from being made that may bolster profits or other financial indicators temporarily, but in the long run, investment for growth should be a priority," says Dugan, a managing director at the private consulting firm Headwaters SC, LP. A long-term view allows customer relationships built on trust, quality, dependability and performance to unfold and become truly a deep relationship, says Dugan, whose work creating and
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running the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh is widely credited with helping thousands of small businesses revitalize the Western Pennsylvania area.
LUNCH WITH GRANDMA PELUSO
That's certainly the culture Michael Peluso's grandfather, Teddy Sr., and father, Teddy Jr., left him. Michael Peluso remembers one summer when a customer spent an entire week at the family's plant in Chelsea reviewing proofs of his catalog. Each day at noon, Teddy Sr. would walk the customer up the street to his home, where his wife served them lunch. Years after she passed, the client still talked about how much he cherished those visits. "He'd always comment that he felt he was part of something special," Peluso says. "I think being family-owned does resonate with clients for that simple fact. The printing business was inherently family-owned for years, and now the culture has changed, and only the smaller shops
are family owned and the bigger ones are all publicly-owned." Dugan says research has shown family-owned firms tend to have lower employee turnover than non-family-owned businesses for the same reason. "Stability, loyalty and trust that the family will do the right things are in the fabric of great family owners, and the employees understand and value the culture that is created," she says. AN EXTENDED SENSE OF FAMILY Shawmut learned the importance of treating employees like family in 1991, when Michael's mother, who prepared job estimates and billings, succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 49. "From our perspective, that was a pretty huge tragedy," Peluso says. "In the months afterward, our employees really stepped up and kept our business going. We look back on that as a pivotal moment for the company."
In the years since, employee loyalty has played a key role in sustaining Shawmut through lean times. "In periods of recession, we have had employees take pay cuts to keep their co-workers employed," Peluso says. "That goes back to having a sense of family. It's not just a co-worker who stands to lose their job. It's someone who has a family." While that may sound sentimental to some, Peluso says it goes to the heart of why Shawmut has endured for three generations. Shawmut had a lot to celebrate at its Christmas party last year, but for Peluso the highlight was how employees responded when a co-worker's husband was diagnosed with cancer.
"The employees came to the ownership group and said they figured she would need two months off to get him through treatments," Peluso recalls. "They wanted to donate time for her and we said we will double whatever time you donate." Most of Shawmut's 70 employees ended up donating four hours, but one donated an entire week of their vacation time. "That," Peluso says, "was the highlight of 2015 for me."
Stability, loyalty and trust that the family will do the right things are in the fabric of great family owners and the employees understand and value the culture that is created." – Ann M. Dugan, Managing Director, Headwaters SC, LP
Your 3-Step Guide to Long-Term Family Business Success
Ann M. Dugan, managing director of family advisory services at Headwaters SC, LP, recommends family-owned business take the following three steps to ensure their success and longevity:
1
VET THE RISING GENERATION EARLY
By age 16, members of the upcoming generation should be invited to a family meeting to gauge their knowledge and interest in the business. While topics will vary depending on the individual, the executive team should be prepared to discuss: what skills and talents they will need should they care to join the business in the future; the major opportunities and challenges facing the business; requirements of ownership and how that will become available to future generations.
2
ALWAYS HAVE A BUSINESS OR STRATEGIC PLAN AND ANNUAL BUDGET
Founders focused on surviving day to day often work without a strategic plan or annual budget. That won't suffice for later generations of siblings and cousins, whose focus will be on growing the business. It's critical to develop a deliberate strategic planning process that builds consensus and surfaces inevitable conflicts over spending priorities as early as possible. Dissenting family members should agree to either support the company's strategic vision and execute its annual budget or leave the company.
3
ACCEPT AND BUILD GOOD GOVERNANCE OF THE FAMILY AND THE BUSINESS
The business should have a board of directors or, at a minimum, an advisory board, that includes independent directors who are neither members of the family nor vendors. A good split is three family and two independent directors. Most successful family businesses say independent directors are critical to ensuring decisions are based on what is best for the business and future generations and not emotions.
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Marketing is a house of cards without compelling content BY CHARLES LUNAN
lack of true content is killing the reputation of content marketing. That's the view of Joe Pulizzi, who is hearing more griping from the small business owners and executives attending his content marketing classes. They complain that their email newsletters, blogs and Facebook pages are not getting enough traction. When the complaints came up at a workshop a few months ago, an exasperated Pulizzi asked his audience how their content was different. He was greeted with silence. With a little prodding, one vendor said it had posted coupons on Facebook, another vendor had shared content with 300 of its dealers, and a third posted an article that was intentionally generic to avoid giving away his advice. He told them that until they became serious about creating original, compelling content, they’d be better off spending their money on advertising.
It’s hard to find a bigger content marketing evangelist than Pulizzi, who founded the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) in the late 2000s after deciding he could help global brands do a much better job with their marketing. Today, CMI offers content marketing education and training, produces the Content Marketing World Conference and Expo, publishes CCO [Chief Content Officer] magazine and offers its Content Marketing Master Class through a nationwide seminar series.
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Pulizzi has written two books on the topic and CMI’s site is chock full of great content about content marketing, which it describes as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” When done correctly, Pulizzi argues content marketing establishes an aura of authority and trust that are at the core of any brand promise and can help brands own their media channels, rather than rent them through advertising. In his 2015 book, “Content Inc.,” Pulizzi argues that finding and filling information voids online can help startup companies stake out leadership positions in fast-moving markets before they even ship their first product. The problem is that “99 percent” of marketers are not generating distinctive content.
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"Somewhere along the line," Pulizzi wrote in a blog post earlier this year, “we marketers became infatuated with the tools and less concerned about what we put inside them. This, my friends, has got to change.”
The objective of storytelling is to earn trust. People buy products they think align with the people they want to be.” – KRISTIN CARPENTER-OGDEN, FOUNDER & CEO, VERDE BRAND COMMUNICATIONS
Many marketers have found telling real people’s stories to be one of the most potent tools for breaking through what Rutgers University Marketing Professor Mark Schaefer called “overwhelming information density. In his book, “The Content Code,” such stories are original and, therefore, authentic by definition. The way marketers create and distribute content is constantly changing, but the basic dynamics of storytelling – and their power to influence – have stood the test of time. “People still love a good yarn and, more importantly, they will remember it long after their memory of product specifications, endorsements and Facebook promotions fade,” Schaefer says. In helping small active lifestyle brands craft their voices, Verde Brand Communications CEO Kristin Carpenter-Ogden has found it particularly useful to start with the founder. Their stories nearly always follow one of the seven classic heroic themes marketers have exploited for centuries, such as overcoming giants, naysayers and scarcity. Even gear heads rarely remember the weight of every waterproof-breathable garment they use, what blend of fabrics it features or what awards it has won, but they can nearly always recall the story about the sudden mountain storm that inspired the founder to create the brand. The challenge for the marketer remains finding stories that will evoke the desired response from the target customer in a way that is consistent or enhances a client’s existing brand. “The objective of storytelling is to earn trust,” says Carpenter-Ogden, whose firm works with dozens of small active lifestyle brands, including K2, Keen, Mad River Canoe, Pearl Izumi and Raleigh. "People buy products they think align with the people they want to be.”
Seeing this, and under pressure from Greenpeace, United Students Against Sweatshops and other activist groups, a handful of forward-thinking athletic and apparel brands began incorporating corporate responsibility into their content marketing strategies in the 2000s.
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Nike, Adidas, Patagonia and Timberland began publishing annual reports laying out progress they had made against sustainability goals, such as reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, and use of energy and water to position themselves as leaders with their environmentally-minded consumers amid growing pressure from activists. Though fast fashion apparel brands and retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores, have since launched their own corporate sustainability programs, it’s unlikely they will gain significant mindshare with environmentally-minded consumers, even though their efforts will have a bigger impact due to their larger size.
Finding and filling information voids online can help startup companies stake out leadership positions in fast moving markets before they even ship their first product.” – JOE PULIZZI, FOUNDER, CONTENT MARKETING INSTITUTE
Athletic and outdoor brands own the space and they continue to raise the bar. In its annual corporate sustainability report, outdoor gear retailer REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.) now lists information still considered trade secrets by some brands, including a list of all its overseas factories by name and location, aggregate results of factory audits, and the percentage of factories they've placed on probation for failing to meet REI’s environmental and labor standards. Such transparency is fast becoming the new coin of the realm in a world where more and more middle and upper-class consumers expect to know not only where their products are made, but how the workers who made them are treated, what the brand is doing to lessen their carbon footprint and even what they are doing to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Staking out a leadership position on sustainability also has created a steady stream of content, including stories about Timberland’s work reforesting Haiti and Grand Trunk’s efforts to begin sourcing some of its hammocks in the United States. Founded in 2002 by two surfing buddies to import hammocks they discovered while surfing in Thailand, Grand Trunk beat a much larger competitor to begin making nylon sling hammocks in the United States. It took the small company several years to piece together a U.S. supply chain capable of delivering hammocks that meet its quality standards and price points. The OneMade line ultimately will have to compete on quality and price. In the meantime, however, the venture has distinguished Grand Trunk in a rapidly growing, but increasingly crowded market. Skillful storytelling, which should generate some compelling content, sure beats adding to the torrent of "me-too" content that is softening the content marketing world.
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Interview with Joseph A. Michelli
I
Trending with...
Bestselling author
Joseph A. Michelli
n his latest book, “Driven to Delight: Delivering World-Class Customer Experience the Mercedes-Benz Way,” bestselling author Joseph A. Michelli, PhD, provides an insider’s look at the iconic brand’s approach to creating and sustaining customer experiences. The sought-after speaker and organizational consultant has become a globally recognized thought leader in customer experience design by creating masterful roadmaps that help transform the relationship between leaders, employees, and the customers they serve. His books, which also include “The Starbucks Experience,” “The New Gold Standard,” “The Zappos Experience,” “Leading the Starbucks Way” and “Prescription for Excellence” have all hit No. 1 on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller lists. Here are his thoughts on the importance of building customer loyalty today:
Is it fair to say that loyal customers are hard to hold on to today?
Yes. After struggling through years of turmoil and uncertainty, the last thing you need is to take customers for granted. And yet, if your company is like many, all your fervent efforts to attract and retain them fall curiously flat. It’s not that they’re storming angrily out the door; it’s that their experience with your company is not enthusiastic – more “ehh,” than “wow.”
COMPANIES MUST STRIVE TO HIRE PEOPLE WHO TRULY CARE ABOUT CUSTOMERS. IT’S NOT ABOUT SCRIPTING, BUT ABOUT HELPING THEM REALIZE WHAT CUSTOMERS REALLY WANT AND NEED, AND THEN EMPOWERING THEM TO PROVIDE IT.
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So, what are we doing wrong?
Companies have great intentions. They want to delight their customers. Some undertake these big service initiatives, only to see their efforts fizzle quickly or never take root. The problem is that their great intentions are at odds with their culture. When that’s the case, they’re doomed to make certain, predictable mistakes. The mistakes are inevitable. What’s worse is that companies don’t even know they’re making them.
Do companies spend too much time chasing new customers at the expense of existing ones?
Too many companies are directing too much money toward acquisition and hardly any toward retention. The ratio is lopsided. Consider car dealers that spend huge amounts on commercials that scream at people to come in. What they’re not spending money on is employee training to make sure that once these customers are in the door, they’ll come back. I’ve noticed companies that are good at acquiring customers often are not good at retaining them. The key is to be great at both – to use those you’ve retained to help with your acquisition curve. A lot of brands miss the message here. The cost of acquisition is
much higher than the cost of retention, so why not invest more in the cost – in the tools of retention – to maximize that multiplier?
Is the goal to not make your customers work so hard?
Yes, businesses are competing in an increasingly Uber-ized society. Uber customers simply pull out their phones, push the app, and then a car pulls up and takes them where they need to go. They get dropped off. No money is exchanged. Brands are being forced to find ways to make their customers’ entire experience as effortless, frictionless, and yet as personal as possible. Don’t forget how complex life is for your customers. From there, pick apart your deliverable and figure out how to maximize its ease. Customers leave because brands don’t think through the degree of effort it requires to do business with them. They don’t provide solutions. They don’t simplify every touch point. When it’s not almost effortless, customers leave. Wouldn’t you?
Isn’t it all about your brand being authentic?
Companies must strive to hire people who truly care about customers. And that’s just the beginning. Train your employees to connect on a human level. It’s not about scripting, but about helping them realize what customers really want and need, and then empowering them to provide it. While it’s essential to practice disciplined hiring in the search for people with emotional intelligence, those capabilities have to be awakened and reinforced through the training process. Immerse your employees in your brand so they truly understand what it’s like to be the customer. Collect and share stories of customer delight. Touch the hearts of team members as well as their minds. When you do, they’ll genuinely want to serve the customer.
WHAT’S YOUR
Before You Go
SURVEY SHOWS GOALS OF CONTENT CREATION ontent. Ask any marketing department, and they’ll tell you that the quest for organic and compelling content is among their top priorities. According to the “2016 B2B Content Marketing Trends—North America” from Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs, 82 percent are highly focused on creating more engaging content. The report surveyed 1,521 U.S. B2B marketers representing a full range of industries, functional areas and company sizes. Following are some of what marketers say are their top priorities for content creation:
72%
Creating more engaging content Better understanding of what content is effective – and what isn’t
57%
Finding more/better ways to repurpose content Creating visual content
65%
51%
Better understanding of audience
41%
Becoming better storytellers
41% MAY/JUNE 2016
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Shawmut Communications Group 33 Cherry Hill Drive, Danvers, MA 01923
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