Marketing - The Social Media Professor

The Convenience Revolution by Shep Hyken, a Video Book Review

October 12, 2018 by Niklas Myhr Leave a Comment

In a time when products are increasingly similar, it is more difficult to stand out. As a long-time expert in how excellent customer service provides a frontier along which you can still differentiate yourself from competition, Shep Hyken, who was kind enough to provide me with a review copy, is uniquely positioned to capture what it takes to do so even in a time when the stakes are raised by Amazon.com and others and his new book The Convenience Revolution draws inspiration not just from Amazon.com but also from many other companies big and small. Highly recommended!

Shep talks about how you can center your efforts to provide excellent customer service by focusing on making everything more convenient. He goes through six principles of how you can do so while using a number of examples. Of course, he is including Amazon.com which excels in all six principles but also using a number of different case studies that highlights how these six principles also applies to you even as a personal brand. The book also includes international examples and my native Sweden is represented both by IKEA in terms of providing self-service options and Spotify with convenient subscription services.

The six principles of the convenience revolution are:

Reduce friction
Provide self-service options
Technology that you should use to your advantage
Subscription options that are offered when applicable
Delivery that can be offered faster and more convenient than others
Accessibility by being available when and where the customer finds it convenient.

You may not have to do all six like Amazon.com but you can also cherry-pick and find your way to stand out. For this purpose, The Convenience Revolution by Shep Hyken would provide a great inspiration source.

6 Ways Professional Speakers Can Help Meeting Professionals

March 11, 2018 by Niklas Myhr Leave a Comment

Enjoyed a very enlightening talk by Deborah Gardner CMP (Certified Meeting Professional) at the monthly meeting of NSAGLAC (National Speakers Association, Greater Los Angeles Chapter). Deborah Gardner has a rich background to draw upon including qualifying for the 1980 Moscow Olympics that the US boycotted and serving as a Marine. At this meeting, however, Deborah built upon her 27 years of experience as a meeting professional and she generously shared many value nuggets in her presentation. Here follows merely a small sample in the form of six ways a professional speaker can better accommodate the needs of meeting professionals:

Respect the complexity of a Meeting Professional, speaker selection and management is merely one small piece in a much bigger puzzle. They are heavily involved in the strategic aspects of meetings and manage logistics, food and beverages, hotels, sponsors, etc. Hence, call them “meeting professionals” and not merely “meeting planners” as the latter doesn’t quite capture the depth of their profession.
Market the event on various social media platforms and produce videos sharing your enthusiasm for meeting the audience. Also ask the meeting professional about various ways in which you can help promote the meeting as they may have desired format, timeline, hashtags, etc.
Communicate in a responsive manner as meeting professionals experience very high stress levels. Answer their calls and emails in a responsive manner and let them know when you arrive, etc. Avoid big surprises on stage that you have not cleared with them beforehand. She brought up an example of a speaker who changed the topic based on the news he saw in the hotel room the night before the event which meant that his talk didn’t match the conference agenda. The meeting professional was not pleased.
Customize your talk to the industry as industry-related topics increasingly are in focus. Therefore, you may want to consider speaking more to industries in which you have more direct experience. Also, keep in mind that many people in the audience go to 5-6 events a year these days so the chances are higher that they have seen you before which means that you increasingly have to create a new presentation every time.
Engage the audience. Meeting professionals want “participants,” not merely “attendees” so find different ways to get the audience involved as this will increase the likelihood that the audience achieve the goal of true professional development. You don't want people to just passively sit back and watch your keynote. You can use exercises, props or social media during the presentation to get interaction going with the participants. However, don’t overdo the complexity in terms of technology as this could stress out the audience if they don’t understand what they are supposed to do.
Develop relationships with meeting professionals to better understand their changing needs, so now I am pleased to get to know Deborah ? This was merely a sampling of what Deborah shared with our chapter and for more knowledge about meeting professionals and what speakers need to know, look no further than to Deborah Garder!

Facebook Marketing in 2018

March 1, 2018 by Niklas Myhr Leave a Comment

Michael Stelzner, CEO and Founder of Social Media Examiner, kicked off Social Media Marketing World 2018 with a bang in the form of a keynote in which he began by instilling fear amongst the thousands of marketers in attendance. Simply put, marketers cannot go on as usual expecting to have meaningful reach and engagement unless they adapt to a new way of marketing, especially on Facebook. The good news was that Mike also offered hope by offering some strategies for marketers going forward.

Facebook Prioritizing Meaningful Interactions

On January 11, 2018, Digiday published an article on Facebook using a graphic showing Mark Zuckerberg in a nuclear cloud indicating that something major was about to happen. Also, Michael Stelzner highlighted many of the recent announcements by Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives in which they are very clearly stating that they are indeed very serious about making some major changes to the algorithm which is determining what posts show up in people's newsfeeds.

One way in which Facebook is planning to change is that they plan to prioritize what they refer to as “meaningful interactions.” This could include things such as commenting on or liking another person’s photo or status update, a person reacting to a post from a publisher that a friend has shared, multiple people replying to each others' comments on a video that they watched or an article that they read in the newsfeed, or a person sharing a link over Facebook Messenger.

Furthermore, Michael Stelzner brought up a recent interview with Facebook's head of the newsfeed Adam Mosseri who states that we can expect to see more posts that generate longer comments and since they would like to generate meaningful interactions, they will show less video in the newsfeed since that often becomes a one-way interaction unless it is live when people can comment and discuss with the person broadcasting. March Zuckerberg added in a January 31, 2018 update on Facebook that they are going to show fewer viral videos to make sure people's time is well spent and that this means that they will reduced videos shared by a full 50 million hours!

Also, you can expect less traffic to brands' Facebook Pages and the links you post to external pages will get even less visibility than they already get. Your organic posts on your Facebook Pages are already at a very low level but this can also be expected to go down further so it becomes almost pointless for a brand to post updates on their Facebook Pages unless they boost their posts with advertising dollars.

Supposedly, the updates of the algorithm will apply to all post types, from both Facebook Pages and the Facebook profiles of individuals. That is, the algorithm doesn’t care if you are a page or a profile.

Social Media Marketers Need to Focus on Smaller Audiences

A full 67% of the social media marketers that they recently surveyed stated that Facebook was their most important social network following by LinkedIn at 12%, Instagram at 10%, Twitter with 5%, and YouTube at 4%. This didn't concern Mike nearly as much as the fact that a full 63% of marketers indicated that they plan on increasing organic posts on Facebook. He bluntly stated that something has got to change for marketers as well given all the clearly stated announcements by Facebook mentioned above.

So, what are marketers to do? Is this really the end of the organic road and do we all have to pay for every engagement going forward? Clearly, Michael Stelzner brought up, the demand for Facebook ads WILL increase and moreover, the more relevant ads will get preferential treatment in terms of visibility.

One path forward that he emphasized was that even without paying for boosting posts, etc, marketers can still achieve success by focusing on smaller, but more relevant and engaged audiences and that these can be more valuable than a larger, yet less engaged one.

Episodic Storytelling

If storytelling was a big theme at last year's Social Media Marketing World, Michael Stelzner this year pointed out the potential for what he referred to as “episodic storytelling.” While you may not get a huge audience that wants to follow you over a series of updates, Michael shared that his own experience with sharing updates with his live video series The Journey has generated extremely positive feedback from a very excited tribe of followers.

Regardless, the advantage of episodic storytelling is that you can establish the know, like, and trust that marketers always have strived for. Also, if you do choose to advertise, Facebook enables more and more powerful ways to engage with your tribe of followers such as by being able to advertise just to those who already watched your videos to increase repeat viewership and that repeat viewership is a factor that Facebook has stated that they keep track of.

Facebook Watch to the Rescue

If a big opportunity for marketers still focusing on Facebook is to work with episodic storytelling, then they should look into the new platform for shows called Facebook Watch. Mark Zuckerberg wrote on January 31, 2018 that:

“Over the next three years, we know video will continue to grow, so our job is to build video experiences that help people connect with friends, family , and groups”

Facebook Watch is a platform for shows and where you can start building your community of passionate fans and be rewarded for the work you do. This might be complicated and take a lot of work to produce a series of videos, Michael Stelzner stated, but that is exactly why this may represent a great opportunity for you, since most of your competitors are likely not going to do anything about it!

Live Video

Also, video on the go in the live format often lead to discussions amongst viewers, in fact, live videos on average get six time more interaction and given what Facebook says about rewarding interaction, this could not be a bad thing.

Go live during killer events such as Social Media Marketing World, Michael Stelzner hinted or create a weekly show in which you share tips and tricks, talk strategy, or provide a news show in your field of interest. He himself is offering a weekly live news show every Friday morning.

Go Beyond Facebook

As marketers start creating more and longer videos (or video series), a full 77% of their survey respondents indicated that they plan on increasing their use of video in the next 12 months, Michael Stelzner also suggested that they think more beyond Facebook as well. Marketers should leverage other platforms such as YouTube, etc, for further reach and engagement with their video work so it doesn't go to waste. On the same theme, but not just related to video marketing, Michael Stelzner said more should go back and revisit LinkedIn that he thinks is doing a lot of cool things now and that it is especially relevant for those with a business audience. Plus, don’t write off Twitter just yet!

Facebook Stories

He also brought up the potential for Facebook Stories as an alternative to creating content for the Facebook newsfeed. Mark Zuckerberg also stated that “we expect Stories are on track to overtake posts in feeds as the most common way people share across all social apps.” Zuckerberg also bragged about Facebook owning the two biggest platforms for the sharing of Stories, Facebook and Instagram not even mentioning that it was Snapchat that invented the format.

Facebook Messenger

Another opportunity would be to create more meaningful interactions using Facebook Messenger. There are 1.3 billion people on Messenger and some of them are not even using Facebook. Some brands are developing their Messenger Bots that will interact in increasingly personalized and human ways with your audience and this is still at the early stages as only 15% of marketers report that they are currently using Messenger bots.

Chatbots basically is software that has conversations with people. Ideally, it should allow for and be able to respond to natural language queries but sometimes it can be simplified with a multiple choice type of interface. Still, the Chatbot advantage is that it can quickly answer questions right at the point-of-sale and speed support response times.

Video by Influencers

If you don't find the motivation or resources to develop your own video series, Michael Stelzner suggests that you consider hiring a social influencer that can do so on your behalf. In return, you can accelerate the growth of an engaged audience and gain access to a professional who can generate meaningful interaction in the form of dialogues.

Be Human

One common theme across Michael Stelzner's excellent keynote was that we should go back to the basics of being more human and develop long-term relationships in an authentic manner. Perhaps that sounds cliché to many but those things likely never will go out of fashion and by implementing some of the tips Michael shared, I think marketers will be more successful building their communities of passionate followers and hopefully customers.

The Fire Funnel Process by John Lee Dumas at Youpreneur Summit

November 11, 2017 by Niklas Myhr 8 Comments

The opening keynote speaker at the inaugural Youpreneur Summit John Lee Dumas, founder of the popular Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast, shared his Fire Funnel process for digital entrepreneurs. John started out by suggesting that you start with a “Funnel Up Process” to understand who you are going to serve before you design your sales of your “Funnel Down Funnel”.

The Funnel Up process

The Idea. What is your big idea that you want to build upon.
The Niche. Get that initial momentum is key, not easy, but once you get it, you can get things going. Then you can expand your scope. Rather than being Mr or Mrs Social Media of London, you'd be better off helping female dentists in Soho get one new client via Facebook Ads.
The Avatar. Who is that perfect customer, the listener to your podcast, the reader of your blog. Get to know that person in and out and try to identify their struggles.
The Medium of Choice. Blogging, podcasting, video, etc. Which one should you focus on?
The Content Creation. You need a system to setup to make sure you have a process to create great content on a regular basis.
The Repurpose. Once you have a good platform you can find content that can be used on other platforms as well. John uses Repurpose.io to get his podcast episodes elsewhere.
The Growth. How can you help others discover you.
The Audience Engagement. He gets millions of listens of his podcast each month which is absolutely absurd to him but he doesn't want to forget about doing things that don't scale. Don't be scared of having a one-on-one conversation. Yes, they can be time-consuming but that is where the gold is. You can learn about what works and doesn't and develop relationships.
The Solution. How can you help solve their problem and serve them. If you keep this in mind from the start, you will focus on generating the right leads and nurture them from the start.

The Funnel Down Process

Once you have gone through the Funnel Up process, you better know how you can help your audience and then you can design your Funnel Down Process to serve them.

Your lead generation. Now you know who to target.
Your Call to Action. Have a specific thing you want them to do.
Your Audience's Email Exchange.
Your Solution Delivery.
Your Audience Consumes.
Your Next CTA.
Live Training. Here John Lee Dumas emphasized the power of live webinars which is where he has made millions.
Live Q&A. Perhaps there is just one remaining obstacle remaining for someone to buy and if you make yourself available live, you can have it resolved right then and there.
Offer. Provide an offer that is supremely valuable for your audience.
Monetize.

The Fire Funnel by EO Fire

Finally, John Lee Dumas shared how he built an empire around daily podcasts with interviews of entrepreneurs. Check out Entrepreneurs on Fire or EO Fire and enjoy the show! John's final perspective he shared that sums up much of his perspective was a quote by Albert Einstein: “Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”

Creative Digital Experiences from Cold, Curiosity and Courage

November 18, 2016 by Niklas Myhr Leave a Comment

Daniel Ilić, North Kingdom at Chapman University 1 — Daniel Ilić, North Kingdom

Always happy to see examples of a symbiosis between my old world of Sweden and my new world of California. Such was the case when I had the honor of hosting a representative of the fascinating digital creative agency success factory North Kingdom in my Internet/Social Media Marketing class at Chapman University. During an enlightening presentation, Daniel Ilić, who heads up the US operation and serves as the Executive Creative Director and Partner of North Kingdom, shone a light on what makes up their culture and explained how it helps them produce world-class digital content and experiences for top brands such as Disney, Google, Beats by Dre, Netflix, Lucasfilm, UFC, Toyota, Volvo, LG Electronics, McDonald's, and Lego. During Daniel's presentation, some themes of the North Kingdom culture emerged and they were very consistent with the picture painted by Daniel's predecessor in the US, Mr. Jakob Nylund, who helped prepare our Business in Scandinavia MBA travel group what a Scandinavian business culture is all about a couple of years ago.

A Frozen Land Breeds Remarkable Creativity

North Kingdom was founded in the city of Skellefteå in Västerbotten County up in northern Sweden. During the long, cold, and dark winters, not everyone could play for Skellefteå AIK, the team that has completely dominated Swedish elite hockey over the last decade. Nor could everyone achieve international pop success like legendary Skellefteå bands The Wannadies, This Perfect Day, or The Drowners (all contemporaries by the way of my brother David Myhr‘s band The Merrymakers). Left over were some childhood friends who bonded in the Skellefteå AIK youth soccer team before forming North Kingdom where they eventually found an outlet for their own form of creativity in helping international brands create unique digital experiences.

Just like my own hometown of Piteå in Norrbotten County an hour north, Skellefteå is part of what is now marketed as Swedish Lapland as creative entrepreneurs have turned ice cold winters from a liability to a treasure. You can achieve global awareness and attract international visitors with the icy offerings such as the ICEHOTEL, northern lights, dogsledding, igloo weekends, or with Japanese-style “Yukigassen” snowball fights. Even Facebook found that frozen is golden as they established its first major data center up in the city of Luleå partially thanks to the fact that the cold climate reduces the costs of cooling the data server halls. Now other international brands such as BMW Group has also found its way to “The Node Pole” at the Fortlax Data Center in Piteå founded by my friend Anders Berglund.

By still having the bulk of their operations based up in Skellefteå, North Kingdom, mainly serving international clients, always comes in as an outsider and thereby is in a better position to see things differently than people inside a bubble would. “A nomad's perspective is always different” as Daniel expressed it.

Daniel Ilić also stressed that the winter darkness gives you creative opportunities simply because the mere thought that a small company up in arctic Sweden could compete and do business with global brands is so absurd that it spurs people up there in the cold darkness to come up with some really crazy ideas and to experiment with studid things that sometimes turn out to be quite remarkable. And that, remarkability, is exactly what is in short supply in an age when being different is a requirement to catch the attention of people in an ocean of sameness. “Safe is risky,” and bad or even bizarre ideas are what you need to get your ideas to spread as Seth Godin emphasized in a TED Talk.

Cultural Traits of Curiosity and Courage

I specifically asked Daniel Ilić to share not only some digital communication insights and expertise but also to teach my students at least two words of Swedish. The two words he chose, “nyfikenhet” (curiosity) and “mod” (courage) turned out to perfectly capture the essence of the cultural traits that beyond the cold climate help explain why this small Swedish firm of North Kingdom has been able to acheive such astounding and award-winning success at the Cannes Lions Festival, etc.

Nobody gets hired by North Kingdom unless they can demonstrate an insatiable curiosity, i.e., they are motivated by their “nyfikenhet” constantly searching for new insights, inspiration, and knowledge and then people share what they have learned by teaching others. Teaching is highly valued and one of the founders, David Eriksson, is a former High School teacher.

Curiosity also helps North Kingdom learn from the customers with more intent by listening more carefully and trying to understand what their real issues are. Sometimes, this means speaking to the customers for hours on the phone mainly letting the client let off some steam about what is going on in their worlds.

When it comes to courage or “mod,” Daniel means that staff get emboldened by an extremely supportive team spirit that characterizes North Kingdom. People feel that they can stretch the envelope with out-of-the-box ideas as discussed above as they work collaboratively in teams getting instant feedback and where they constantly spur each other on. Gone are the days when creative agency work was done in siloed departments of single-area specialists and North Kingdom seems to have found the formula for team-based success.

Scandinavian Hours and Vacation

Finally, Daniel Ilić, explained how he worked hard to maintain a Swedish managerial style even as he heads up the US subsidiary. For example, if he finds someone working in the office at 6:30 pm, he kicks them out asking them what they are still doing there, that they should be going home and that he should join them on the way out! Similarly, the Swedish minimum vacations of five or six weeks are also “enforced” 🙂 In the end, healthy and happy employees are better and more creative employees. Which reminds me, I should go to bed now, so good night!

The Science of Haters with Jay Baer

March 28, 2015 by Niklas Myhr 4 Comments

In his closing keynote at the Social Media Marketing World 2015, Jay Baer stressed how important it is to embrace your critics and “Hug Your Haters” by responding to every complaint on every channel basically all the time. By doing so, companies can significantly increase sentiment metrics such as customer advocacy and conversely, if you fail to do so, customer advocacy will go down according to recent research on “The Science of Haters” that he has conducted in partnership with Tom Webster at Edison Research. He even went so far as saying that “answering complaints can have massive financial impact on your business.”

Niklas Myhr and Jay Baer at Social Media Marketing World 2015 — Giving Jay Baer a good luck hug before his keynote 🙂

Reasons why companies do not respond to all complaints range from an unwillingness to dignify complaints to an inability to manage a large number of complaints or even find them in the first place. Still, Jay Baer suggests that with top management commitment and sufficient resources allocated, a company can, and should, respond to all complaints. He used KLM as a case study and mentioned that when the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano wreaked havoc on flights a few years back, their CEO committed to responding to every complaint. Now they have a full 150 full-time employees dedicated to responding to online mentions across all channels.

An interesting distinction made by Jay Baer was the one he made between so-called onstage versus offstage haters. Offstage haters are those who complain about an experience through a private channel first and herein lies the opportunity for companies to help them out before they go public with their displeasure. Offstage haters skew towards an older demographic and they don't complain as frequently as others and when they do so, they tend to do it from a computer, not from a mobile device.

Onstage haters, on the other hand, are younger, more mobile and tend to also complain more frequently. When they do so, they go to public channels first and expect not only the company to respond, but also that others will see and perhaps chime in on the conversation about the brand. For onstage haters, it is important to have an audience that is watching the duel between the complainant and the company and that is why many review sites are humorous, colorful, and bold.

“Hating is a spectator sport.”

– Jay Baer

White Castle 2 Star Review — This is a 2 star review! How would their 1 star reviews look like?

One benefit of taking complaints seriously is that these can serve as an early detection system by which you can learn about customer sentiments that may become a bigger issue for more people down the road unless you do something about it. Jay Baer also pointed out that most complaints have at least some kernel of truth in them and studied carefully, complaints can provide extraordinary insights.

On another note, Jay Baer brought up Warby Parker as an example of a company that not only responds to complaints but has as its goal to respond to every question posted online. That is, being responsive doesn't have to focus solely on the negative remarks.

In sum, Jay Baer pointed out that having haters is not the problem, ignoring them is. Instead, by choosing to embrace haters, companies have a great opportunity to build customer advocacy.

Jay Baer closing keynote audience — Enthusiastic audience about to enjoy Jay Baer's closing keynote

Consider getting the Virtual Pass to Social Media Marketing World 2015 which should provide a rich library of materials for the year to come, cannot recommend it enough!

Disclosure: Some of the links on this website are so-called “affiliate links” but please note that I only recommend products or services that I either use to satisfaction personally or am confident will add value to my readers based on endorsements by people I trust.

Check out Global Marketing Professor

March 13, 2015 by Niklas Myhr Leave a Comment

While I currently concentrate my own blogging on TheSocialMediaProfessor.com, I also maintain GlobalMarketingProfessor.com as a hub with links to multiple specialized sites on various aspects of International Marketing. When I teach MBAs, I sometimes give them as an assignment to blog and currently, my Executive MBA class in Marketing Management blogs on GlobalMarketingProfessor.com. Check it out, I'm sure you'd enjoy it!

My Vote for The Business Podcast of the Year: Smart Passive Income

March 12, 2015 by Niklas Myhr Leave a Comment

2015 is turning out to be yet another “Year of the Podcast” and while I am myself still procrastinating the launch of my own podcast (any week now…), I very much enjoy listening to the podcasts of others during my daily walks with our Goldendoodle Simona (pictured below!).

In addition to following podcasts on social media and digital marketing, I have also been “glued” to the Serial podcast (good luck with your appeal Adnan Syed!) and picked up the Swedish hit interview series “Värvet” now also available in an English-speaking version Varvet Intl.

What I have not done enough of to date, however, is to help spread the word about the podcasts that I recommend others tune into and today marks a particularly timely occasion to start doing more of that. The situation is that one of my favorite podcasters, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, is yet again up for a Business Podcast of the Year award. (Beyond the To-Do List by Eric Fisher is another great one amongst the finalists by the way!)

So, why do I think that Pat Flynn is most deserving of this award? For starters, he is generous and transparent with his audience about sharing both his successses (many!) and failures as he conducts a rather impressive series of experiments with his own online entrepreneurial ventures. He even calls himself the “crash test dummy of online business.”

In addition, he features an intriguing list of guests on his show that includes not only the “big names” but also people you've never heard of. Using this approach, Pat effectively illustrates how a varied set of small businesses, solopreneurs, and part-time entrepreneurs can achieve impressive results both cost-effectively and in relatively short order. Through his disarming charm and curious attitude, Pat manages to get guests to open up more than on the average podcast to the benefit of listeners such as me that stands to learn from their experiences.

Niklas Myhr & Pat Flynn at Social Media Marketing World 2014

Tips and tactics shared on Smart Passive Income revolve around how you can best leverage tools, time, and resources for maximum impact and value to the communities you serve. He shares his favorite tools, explains how he uses his time and experiments with his morning routine, and increasingly Pat also includes discussions about how you can scale up a small business through the use of outsourcing without losing the human touch. In this last respect, Pat has been inspired by his best buddy Chris Ducker, the Virtual CEO and author of the eye-opening and best-selling book Virtual Freedom.

There is no doubt that sales and marketing is undergoing a radical transformation fueled by increasingly powerful new technologies and platforms available at low cost and I think it is critical to stay up to date with what those opportunities are regardless of whether you are strive for a corporate life or enter into online entrepreneurship to some extent.

At least, I know that many of my students are looking at all the emerging technologies with a mixed sense of bewilderment and overwhelm and I don't hesitate to recommend they listen to Smart Passive Income for clarity and to get with the game. For corporate managers and executives, I also think it makes sense to learn what a new generation of online startups are up to as they and the companies they work for otherwise risk becoming obsolete unless they too become more responsive to the needs of clients and adopt some of the same tools, principles and strategies as those discussed on Smart Passive Income.

So, if you are not convinced yet that Smart Passive Income is a podcast deserving of your vote as Podcast of the Year, please give it a chance and listen to some episodes first and I think that you'll come around 🙂 Thanks Pat for all the good work that you do that also undoubtedly also helps me stay up-to-date and relevant as a Social Media Professor. I am also looking forward to seeing you and Chris Ducker and learning more about this exciting time of online business and entrepreneurship that we are living in at the 1-Day Business Breakthrough event in San Diego on April 24!

Simona at her lookout post.

A photo posted by Niklas Myhr (@niklasmyhr) on Mar 5, 2015 at 7:31am PST

The Marketing Concept Sliding Down the Long Tail of Marketing

March 10, 2015 by Niklas Myhr Leave a Comment

In the history of marketing, Peter Drucker's Marketing Concept of 1955 is a milestone. The statement that “the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer” served as an eye-opener to many executives and helped transform many businesses as a result. Consistent with this perspective, Theodore Levitt published the classic Harvard Business Review article Marketing Myopia in 1960 in which he claimed that businesses should define themselves more in terms of the needs that they were satisfying rather than by the product that they currently made.

This has impacted the naming of companies and the general wisdom is to not name a company after its current product as the means by which you meet customer needs can change over time. Indeed, it is difficult to find more than a few (e.g., Nescafé, MasterCard, and MTV) out of the 100 Best Global Brands of 2014 with a name that directly hints at specific products.

Also, if you have already painted yourself into a product corner that you are feeling is becoming too constrictive, look at ways by which you can become more vague or flexible going forward. Hence, International Business Machines became IBM, Kentucky Fried Chicken started going by KFC, Citibank switched into Citi, and Apple Computer Inc turned into Apple Inc.

Yet, even as I recognize the benefits for many companies if they follow such advice, sometimes I wonder if product-centric names aren't making somewhat of a comeback? I see that companies with a name that specifically matches what someone searches for on Google, can be very successful selling their wares online.

For small businesses to show up high on Google, they often have to resort to so-called long-tail strategies, the idea pioneered by TED founder Chris Anderson. What I also have seen is the phenomenon of companies buying up not just one but multiple domain names. In fact, I visited a firm here in Orange County recently and learned that they operated four different websites under very different names but all four basically led people to the same company and address.

Some businesses are taking this one step further and launch perhaps hundreds of different websites each of which is customized to a precisely defined target market and the searches they are likely to make. The more specific you become, such as through the use of 3 or 4-word keywords, the more likely it also becomes that you will be found by people searching for that more specific term. I recognize that many such websites that are set up are not company names per se but rather they represent product pages but still, building up a product-specific web property could also become limiting after a while.

Regardless, my sense is that emerging long-tail tactics in digital marketing indeed can work to your advantage but a key factor is the degree to which you make fixed investments in the form of time and money spent on each of your many different websites. If that amount is low, you could readily change your mix of product pages and transition to new product categories as needs change. Many products are indeed meant to be temporary and corresponding microsites that are set up do not require substantial resource investments.

The potential downside of using product-centric names is still that you are not building a brand for the long haul if the whole product category risks becoming obsolete or if you would like to include other products in your offering over time. So, what do you think? Would you prefer to build a website using product-specific phrases like Air France or would you rather call yourself McDonald's?

What is Marketing Anyway?

March 4, 2015 by Niklas Myhr Leave a Comment

Niklas Myhr Chapman Panther The Social Media Professor — Go Chapman Panthers!

At times, I encounter successful businesspeople who say that they do just fine without marketing. To explain this position, I hear things like “I don't do marketing, I just do word-of-mouth.” At other times, people express very negative sentiments toward marketers in general and toward attempts at marketing to them in particular.

When I hear these kinds of statements, I realize that there's still a big need for marketing education simply because there's too many misconceptions about what marketing actually is and how it can be done going forward. In this post, I will disentangle a few common misconceptions and conclude with what marketing is and should be all about:

Sales, at least in the old-fashioned sense of the word, is not synonymous with marketing, it is merely one way in which marketing can be implemented.
Advertising is also not the same as marketing even if many seem to blame all marketers for annoying outbound advertising messages.
You cannot do your own word-of-mouth marketing as word-of-mouth implies that there is a third party talking about you.

It should be noted that sales as we know it is undergoing a transformation toward being ever-more relationship-oriented, helpful, long-term, and valuable to customers and that sales is less singularly focused on merely converting prospects into buying clients. In that regard, sales is becoming more similar to marketing which is inherently broader in its scope than traditional outbound sales efforts.

While marketing of the past may have turned many into cynics, I remember attending an American Marketing Association Educators' Conference where a new definition of marketing was unveiled on the main stage to much pomp and circumstance and it provided a step toward a more contemporary view of marketing. Now I dug up the latest edition of this ever-changing definition and here it comes:

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (American Marketing Association, 2013)

This is a definition which is very all-encompassing and with this perspective in mind, I think it is hard to see how a business can be successful without doing marketing. When you do well as a business, it comes from providing value to clients and other stakeholders resulting in high degrees of customer satisfaction. High degrees of customer satisfaction, in turn, results in two great rewards: word-of-mouth and customer loyalty. If that is not marketing, I don't know what is!