EMS Buzz

Beating the Bankers

August 30th, 2010

No offense to all my colleagues in the PR industry, but the world is pretty topsy-turvy when the public has a more positive view of us than of bankers.

I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

Ah, the exquisite joy of nah, nah, na nah nah.

For my entire career, advertising and PR people have scraped the bottom of the barrel full of miscreants not to be trusted, right down there with used car salesmen.

According to Ragan’s PR Daily News Feed, (okay, consider the source) the public has a whopping 36 percent approval rating of the ad/PR industry. That might not seem like much if you’re an art director or a copywriter, but let me tell you, it beats the airline, pharmaceutical and banking industries, to name a few.

I’m not sure our image has risen among the public, but perhaps others have just sunk while we stayed the same. Or maybe with those glamorous Mad Men running around cable TV, our image has improved. Or not—all those three martini lunches were nothing to brag about.

Of course, since “image” is our stock in trade, you’d think we’d do better for ourselves. What is that homily? The cobbler’s children go barefoot? While, what? While we PR people are busily boosting the image of the airline, pharmaceutical and banking industries? Ooops. I guess not.

Tags: PR, reputation, reputation management, trust
Posted in marketing | No Comments »

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate

August 23rd, 2010

In ThomasNet’s Industry Market Trends, the lead article discusses workplace communication. Really good communication is critical to employees’ success, to say nothing of the organization.

Amen.

That said, though, good communication ain’t all that easy. Many people think MORE communication is better communication. It isn’t. The best communication is between two parties, both of whom put themselves in the other’s shoes.

If I am a CEO, and I want to share my vision for the company, I want to share it in a way that everyone in the company understands. (And by the way, if you’re a CEO and you don’t want to share your vision, you should probably rethink that.)

The first thing to do is think about who your audience is. How will each segment of your audience receive the message? Under what circumstances will they be most receptive? Most people want to get important info like the CEO’s corporate vision in person. Face-to-face. With plenty of opportunity for questions and answers.

That’s not always practical. Your salespeople might be best reached on their Blackberries while workers in the plant may have to get a written message. And this is only the delivery method.

What about the message itself? It’s impossible to communicate well if you haven’t thoroughly thought through what you’re trying to say. Articulate your message as simply as possible. Leave it overnight and look at it in the morning. Imagine yourself as an employee who is not privy to what the CEO thinks. Look at the message through that employee’s eyes. Does it make sense? Can you cut things out for clarity’s sake? You will seldom need to add.

Now, why are you doing this? What result do you expect? Do you want people to understand where you want to go? Then what is the individual’s role in getting there? How does the vision relate to each person in your company? You may have to craft several messages, targeted to different employee groups. Everyone will want to know how your message relates to them in particular.

And finally, create an opportunity for feedback. Not the kind where e-mails evaporate into black holes, but the kind where you acknowledge the comment, and follow up with meaningful action, if appropriate. And then, make sure you report on that action.

See? It’s a lotta work. No wonder so many people have a failure to communicate.

Tags: employee communication, Marketing Communications
Posted in Marketing Communications | No Comments »

How to Tell if a Trade Show Is a Black Hole?

August 16th, 2010

I’ve already admitted to having a nerdy love of trade shows. The right trade shows, that is. You know, the ones where potential customers show up with business cards proclaiming they have a big budget and a deep desire to spend it on your service within the week. The ones where the trade press elbow each other to get over your carpet line and into your booth to do a feature on your latest widget.

Well, it’s possible. I’ve even seen it. But how do you know what kind of results you’ll get before you commit to the show? Electronics Midwest looks like a good show to me (Rosemont, IL, September 28-30). The web site tells you everything you need to know about the actual show—schedules, conferences, exhibiting, workshops, events, floor plans, how to get there, where to stay. This is all good.

But what if you’re thinking about being a first-time exhibitor?

The web site lists the types of equipment, systems, supplies and services attendees are looking for at the show. But there are no demographics. And nothing remotely like a BPA audit report or circulation statement that magazines have.

In defense of Electronics Midwest, I’ve never seen it for other trade shows either. It costs a lot of money to gather that kind of info.

But it costs a lot of money to exhibit, too. So I scouted around on the web site and saw a list of other companies that exhibit, which gives me an idea of who else thought this show was a worthwhile investment. And the titles of the sessions help me out. Who’s delivering papers is another clue.

None of it’s a substitute for really good info on attendees, though.

And, if it’s not being too demanding, I’d like to know who’s coming from the trade press, too.

Tags: EMS, Marketing Communications, marketing ROI, ROI, sales leads, trade shows
Posted in marketing | 2 Comments »

Of Trade Shows and Sailboats

August 9th, 2010

How are trade shows like sailboats? They are both black holes into which you throw money. Only a trade show is supposed to give you a return on that money.

In a recent IPC post, Trade Shows and Black Holes, Terry Costlow cites a study that says nearly 70% of sales leads, many of them from trade shows, are not pursued by the sales force at all. I assume that does not mean that 70% of leads are not quality leads. Rather, I’m guessing no one has done the research to find out if the leads are quality or not.

It’s also possible the leads are junk. Perhaps the “leads” are a collection of cards or names gathered at a trade show that were never quality to begin with. Trade show attendees exchange their business cards for whatever trinket the exhibitor is handing out, without any thought to actually trying to connect with a viable prospect.

Regardless, companies that invest in trade shows need to invest a tiny bit more to have a lead generation and follow-up strategy. Some considerations might include:

getting the attention of your target market, rather than every Tom, Dick and Harry that passes by your booth;
training your salespeople to bring prospects over the carpet line and qualify them on the spot;
capturing the qualified leads with enough detailed info that tells you whether prospects should be sent a letter and targeted collateral material or whether they should get a phone call pronto from the right regional salesperson;
nurturing the leads that are not yet sales; and
documenting the results so you can calculate the return for each trade show.

And speaking of follow-up, in my last blog I promised to post some blogs I follow on my blogroll, but ugh. Ran into technical difficulties. However, I also promised to share some viable EMS blogs with you. One is the IPC blog mentioned above, and another good one is Technology Contractors Daily News’ blog. Which ones do you like?

Now that we’ve talked about getting a return on trade shows, how to get a return on a sailboat? I have a little Butterfly sailboat that must be 25 years old, requires almost no up-keep and every time I take it out I’m delighted with my investment.

Tags: accountability, marketing ROI, ROI, sales leads, trade shows
Posted in marketing | 1 Comment »

Virtually as Good as a Trade Show

July 12th, 2010

As a B2B marketing person I’ve always loved trade shows. Where else do all the trade press and your competitors and customers converge in one place—all with common interests? People who are looking to buy are all in the same room with people who are looking to sell. Trackable sales leads are flowing like a river from an identifiable source. Gotta love it.

But according to a Forbes article, trade show revenue in the U.S.—about $12 billion annually—was expected to contract nearly 7 percent last year. Trade shows require significant investment—booth space, exhibit design, videos, collateral materials, and most expensive of all—travel and expenses for the sales team. No wonder people don’t think they can afford trade shows.

There is, of course, a cost for not participating—lost opportunity. You can’t get sales leads from trade shows if you’re not there. But now, with virtual trade shows, you don’t have to be physically there. You can “man” your booth from your office computer, or, well, any computer anywhere. That saves a bundle in T&E. Other things are cheaper, too, in the virtual world. Entry fees, exhibit design and build. All you need is one representative from your company to be on deck to instant message visitors to your virtual booth.

I do still like the visual, physical, meet-and-greet trade show. There’s no substitute for seeing faces, talking to actual people in person. But if it’s a luxury your company can’t afford, check out the virtual shows.

Tags: accountability, B2B advertising, B2B branding, marketing, marketing ROI, sales leads, trade shows
Posted in marketing | 2 Comments »

Manufacturing Manufacturing Jobs

July 5th, 2010

Back in the ‘80s I worked for a Fortune 500 company that had manufacturing facilities all over the place. They built massive things, like railcars, but they decided it was more profitable to stop creating products and start buying them elsewhere. At the time, this saddened me, even though I was all for increased profitability.

It seemed a bit penny wise and pound foolish to have invested in people and equipment for decades and then just stop. All that expertise down the drain. All those jobs gone overseas. All those people here in the U.S.—whole towns—idle. Seemed like a waste, even though items being manufactured had become commoditized and could be produced cheaper elsewhere.

There’s an interesting article by Andy Grove in Business Week that articulates the problem with more nuance. He says, “Not only did we lose an untold number of jobs, we broke the chain of experience so important in technological evolution. As happened with batteries (that are now being manufactured overseas), abandoning today’s ‘commodity’ manufacturing can lock you out of tomorrow’s emerging industry.”

I’m not sure there’s an emerging industry we’ll miss by not building railcars, but maybe. You don’t know for sure unless you continue to build them. But you do know it’s more satisfying to actually produce something, a physical thing you can touch and be proud of. And you do know it’s a good thing to create jobs, not lose them.

When you manufacture things, you also manufacture jobs.

Tags: B2B manufacturing, jobs
Posted in Manufacturing | No Comments »

ROI Is King

June 29th, 2010

At least that’s what “roi” means in French, “king.” What does “ROI” mean to marketers?

I just saw the term used loosely again, in a feature article of B2B magazine. A sophisticated marketer referred to his program to measure marketing effectiveness as his ROI program—you know, click-throughs, webinar sign-ups, landing page hits. Aaaugh!

Why do marketers insist on using this term incorrectly? It has a very specific meaning. Basically, ROI is the profits generated over and above the initial investment and expressed as a percentage of the investment. It’s a financial gain—not an increase in awareness, not market share, not the number of leads you get or click-throughs to your web site.

As marketers, we should be aware of the importance of language. We should understand that precise wording makes meaning clear. We should know that it’s critical to be accurate with words if we want to communicate with the best possible results.

Yet, we continue to misuse this term, Return on Investment. Worse than sloppy language, its misuse demonstrates—no, trumpets!—our ignorance. We must use the term carefully, because we need to interact with people in our finance department if we want to calculate ROI according to best practices in our own company. We need guidance from finance to determine what constitutes gross margin, how to define what our investment is, and so much more.

How can we ever hope to work with our finance department if we persist in using finance terminology incorrectly? It’s a problem I’ve been kvetching about so long that I wrote a book, www.marketingroitruth.com. Okay, I’ll get down off my soapbox. For now.

Tags: accountability, Marketing Communications, marketing ROI, metrics, ROI
Posted in Marketing Communications | No Comments »