ROI. It’s the only reason most marketing departments justify budget growth. So here we are well into Q2, and you’re either preparing a new budget (if your calendar year starts in July), or you’re starting to tweak your 2012 budget to more clearly align with desired results. So it’s time to take a look at what’s working and what’s not, and begin some re-considerations.

Do you have a Brand Loyalty program in place? Yes? Well, how’s that working for you?

According to a new study by SAS, a leader in business analytics and integrated marketing management, and Loyalty 360, The Loyalty Marketer’s Association, these programs aren’t working well.

What’s going on? Well, let’s start with the survey snapshot. More than 150 BtoB and BtoC marketing execs were surveyed. Results? Survey says:

• Two-thirds have a department or functional area dedicated to customer loyalty and retention

-       13 percent plan to add one

• Less than one in four consider their loyalty and retention efforts “very effective”

-       Approximately 44 percent think their programs are “somewhat effective”

OK, so we’re investing all this time and money, and the efforts are not returning much in the way of loyalty. If you take findings from a CMO Council survey into consideration, you’ll find that what’s really happening as a result is defection! Bulldog Reporter points out that research from the CMO Council suggests loyalty programs are actually alienating our customers, especially when we repeatedly send information that is not tailored to individual needs or interests.

Stop Spamming Your Customers!
As a group, marketers have gone deaf on our customers. Instead of listening to what they need, we tell them what we want. We tell them and tell them and tell them. What are we saying? “We want you to buy more!”

And what our seemingly desperate actions say is that “We don’t care what you buy, just buy something! And we will keep emailing you with irrelevant offers until you DO buy something!”

Or, more likely, until they bow out – gracefully, or not so gracefully.

Let’s consider a few personal examples. Think of that wine club you joined online recently, or that makeup you purchased using a store credit card (whose bill you pay online), or the new store downtown that offered you 10 percent off in exchange for your email address. Every one of them wants to make you a loyal customer, and every one of them has your email address.

Now, how many emails have you received from them lately? One a month? A week? Or is it closer to one a day? Are those emails tailored to you, to what you want or need? How do you feel as a result – do they instill a desire to tell all your friends about how great this is, or would you talk about how obnoxious they are?

Stop Pushing. Listen More.
We’ve been blessed to be marketers in a time when we have a plethora of tools at our disposal. It’s time to use those tools, and use them to refocus on the customer. It’s time to look at the long term value of that customer – and retrain your efforts in converting them into not just ‘loyal customers’ but the Full Monte: A Brand Evangelist!

So be serious. If you think the primary goal of your loyalty program is to get customers to spend more now (as it was with 47 percent of those unsatisfied marketers in the survey), I encourage you to think again.

Likely, your ultimate goal is a hyper-committed customer – someone who recruits new customers for you, who is proud to use your product or service. The best way to drive the long term financial success of your product and your company, thus meeting your objectives, is to create what Loyalty 360 CEO Mark Johnson calls “sustainable behavioral change.”

At Arketi we call this Stop Selling. Start Listening. It’s a way of thinking that re-orientates BtoB marketing to place buyers and their needs at the center of all marketing priorities. Understanding what buyers care about, how they make decisions, and how they want to receive information, makes marketing about them, not us.

That’s not done by beating your customers over the head. Instead, develop a formal customer lifecycle program. Start early in the program – maybe even before the first purchase – and integrate loyalty data into the research and purchase process. Recognize that your customer’s voice is easier to hear now, thanks to social media. Start listening for it. That’s where you’ll get value from your loyalty program.

The SAS/Loyalty360 online survey, entitled Facing the Challenges of Building Loyalty and Retention: The New Strategic Imperative, was conducted from November to December 2011 from a cross section of industries.

This blog post was featured on CommPRO.biz on May 8, 2012 and can be found here.  

How to deliver a clear, strong call to action
from PR Daily
Good calls to action are framed in the context of the audience’s needs, fears, hopes, and desires—not yours. That call to action works better because it is specific, audience-focused, and user-friendly.

How to write a blog post people will read
from PRWeek US
For better or worse, catching people’s attention is probably the most crucial component to a successful blog post.

Google Analytics Adds Social Reports
from Social Media Examiner by Cindy King
These new social reports “help you measure the impact of your social marketing initiatives and evaluate the effect social media has on your goals and ecommerce activities.”

Editorial vs. Advertising: Blurring the Lines
from Tech Affect by Melissa Baratta
Over the last 10 years, the line between journalists and readers has grown significantly shorter. The line between editorial and advertising has also always been a sticky area, and as a PR professional I’m trained to view pay-for-play media opportunities with a bit of a wary eye.

Is Technology Exceeding Humanity?
from My Three Cents by Ken Makovsky
I would contend that as we increasingly become an extension of technology, the human connection becomes more — not less — important. We must not succumb to the lure of the PDA and mistakenly substitute that for the human-to-human relationship.

Addicted to Your Smartphone?
from March Communications by Erica Frank
According to eMarketer, the “smartphone class” is a new class of consumers, with 100 million members (growing daily) who are redefining cultural norms in our country.

Study: Facebook Timeline cover image replace wall posts in popularity
from Ragan.com
Cover images matter most. At least, that’s where the most eyeballs are drawn to on the new Facebook Timeline format, according to a webcam eye-tracking study conducted by EyeTrackShop for Mashable.

16 ways to use Pinterest for PR
from Ragan.com
Pinterest is not a strategy. These are fun ideas for using Pinterest at work, but they should be used as part of a larger marketing or communication strategy.

Brand journalism: everyone has a story
from PRWeek US
At first blush, the words “brand journalism” might seem like a contradiction of terms.

7 reasons corporate websites are so boring (and how to fix them)
from Ragan.com
There are many factors that can make Web content dry and stale—many of which have nothing to do with the subject matter. To help you evaluate your own site, here are seven reasons website content loses readers.

Are there any additional online resources journalists turn to? Let us know and we’d like to include your feedback in our next survey. For more results from the 2011 Arketi Web Watch Survey, check out our surveys here.

The 2011 Arketi Web Watch Survey seeks to understand the use of technology by BtoB journalists covering multiple industries. A free copy of the report’s findings can be downloaded at www.arketi.com/surveys.

Is social media simply a bad choice for B2B?
from Ragan.com
When your brand’s name is synonymous with your product, just how useful is social media? That’s what Xerox is figuring out. At the Digitas NewFront conference in New York last week, the company’s chief marketing officer, Christa Carone, said of sponsored tweets, “I’m not sure it works for our campaigns and our messaging.”

Infographic: Presentations with 1-20 slides get read most
from Ragan.com
A new infographic from Sales Crunch zeroes in on just how many of your slides people read after the presentation. The takeaway? People read presentations with fewer slides more than long ones, and for longer periods of time.

Social media analytics: The basics for brands
from PR Daily
Measurement is a ceaseless debate in social media. One of the biggest problems organizations face is defining the key performance indicators (KPIs) they should look at when assessing their efforts. This infographic from Social Media Today lays out some of the analytic basics that almost every business can relate to and understand.

How to Generate More Opportunity From Existing Customers
from Social Media Examiner by Michael Stelzner
In this video I interview Becky Carroll, who is the author of the great new book, The Hidden Power of Your Customers. Becky shares the story and meaning behind her “ROCK” strategy and why it is so important to focus on your existing customers.

Create your own infographics at Visual.ly
from The Publicity Hound’s Blog
Create your own infographic at Visual.ly, a start-up that allows anyone to quickly and easily create professional quality designs with their own data. When you’re ready to show your work to the world, publish it on your Visual.ly profile, your own personal showcase.

A marketer’s guide to the social media landscape: UPDATED
from PR Daily
Companies that jump into social media ventures often wonder which social tools are right for them. Good thing CMO.com updated its highly informative social media primer to help match your goals to the right social media outlets.

If You are Going to Help a Reporter, Remember to be helpful
from PR Breakfast Club
Help a Reporter is great resource for PR pros to have and it presents opportunities not found elsewhere. Stay focused and don’t get sloppy just because you’re emailing a reporter you don’t know. Remember, it is easy to spot a quality PR pro in the batch of query responses by the time that was taken to craft the answer.

Some Small Businesses Are Making One BIG Mistake, And Other Hot Topics
from Constant Contact blogs: Fresh Insights
A new study from BIA/Kelsey found that 80.5% of small businesses are breaking a major best practice by not linking their website to their Facebook, Twitter, or other social media networks. The study also found that almost 75% are missing an email link on their homepage and more than 90% of business sites are not mobile-compatible.

Tech companies lag in corporate blog activity
from BtoB Magazine
Despite the rise of social media and content marketing as key marketing elements, only 20.5% of technology companies have corporate blogs, according to a study by content management company Percussion Software Research.

Dissecting Today’s Top Social Media Tools [Infographic]
from March Communications
With so many different social media tools, it’s often difficult to determine which are best to use for specific campaigns or outreach strategies. Luckily, Zintro compiled a useful infographic detailing the demographics and benefits of four of today’s major social networks.

As BtoB marketers, we spend a lot of time defining our product, price, promotional strategy and the channels we will sell through… but I have realized, that we spend too few cycles on how we are going to package our whole solution to the client.

For many, we think of packaging as the physical box something comes in, and yes, this is packaging. And, we know that certain companies such as Apple take great care in building a great package for their products. In fact, it is part of the product. Many might argue that most of Apple’s great products are the result of a brilliant packaging exercise of various technologies.

Regardless, I don’t believe most companies take the packaging exercise as seriously as it needs to be taken. They build product, they determine pricing, they create a promotional plan, and then they start selling. But, packaging itself is often the glue that holds these “P’s” together. How one goes to market is intricately tied to the “package” it will be delivered in, or for non-physical products, how it is delivered.

Software products are an excellent example where packaging is critical. For example, which features belong in which solution at which price point? Defining this is a packaging exercise. Oftentimes, we have found that not thinking about how the customer wants to buy your solution will greatly limit your flexibility in how you can price it and the channels you sell it through.

Rather than waiting until you are building a go-to-market strategy before considering packaging issues, I would argue packaging needs to be thought through early in the product development cycle and be fed by 1-on-1 customer research. By digging into the customer mindset, we can start to understand what features are considered the basics and which are advanced – we also may start to understand how we can better package and price our solutions to where clients see the value. This will not only increase the sales kill-ratio, but will extract greater revenue from customers. It will also help us architect our products better to serve more customers.

When our product is packaged appropriately, we can segment our market better and tailor specific packages to different needs of different target groups or segments. That can only lead to greater customer acceptance, which should be music to any marketer’s ears.

So don’t forget to think through the packaging of your BtoB solutions early in your product and marketing planning. I am off to lunch now… time for me to go eat some dead, cold fish. Ok, I mean Sushi in a nice restaurant, but it goes to show that packaging does make a difference… I would never buy a package of dead, cold fish!

About nine months ago, I finally succumbed to peer pressure and upgraded my standard cell phone to a smartphone. Yes, you read correctly, nine months ago. What can I say? I’m one of those laggards that Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm, writes about.

Now that I finally made the upgrade, I’ve got to admit that they are nice. Apparently, I am not alone. A lot of people — and I mean a lot — could be considered smartphone addicts, according to recent research from Arbitron/Edison Research.

Here are some mobile stats that will get you thinking:

1. Determine how extensive of a mobile web presence you want to have. A dedicated mobile site? Landing pages, etc.
2. Evaluate the channels and decide what kind of content you need to create for your mobile users. SMS. MMS. Applications. Content. Email, etc. Of note: Forrester Research sees mobile devices and content marketing as two of the top three marketing trends to watch in 2012.
3. Build an integrated strategy that includes apps, display ads and email. Nothing successful stands alone, and your mobile strategy shouldn’t either.
4. Create multiple calls-to-action. Don’t assume your mobile audience wants to connect to you via a single connection point. Include multiple ways to connect in your promotions — from QR codes to text messages.
5. Finally, don’t forget to measure! If you can successfully track prospect interaction with a mobile device, you can justify your mobile program. But if you can’t quantify the value your mobile program is delivering, it’s likely to go the way of the landline phone.

Keep in mind that these tips just scratch the surface in everything you can do to market to mobile users. If you need more assistance, we are always happy to help.

Arketi recently launched Arketi Insights – a regular thought-leadership series of publications that examines top and emerging BtoB marketing topics, and what they mean for high-tech BtoB marketers. The first Arketi Insights focuses on mobile marketing in the BtoB space. The time has come for marketers to past their procrastination and give mobile marketing a serious look – because buyers are. Learn more about how to make mobile a part of your BtoB marketing mix. For a free download of Arketi Insights: Time for Mobile Marketing to Go BtoB, visit ww.arketi.com/2012mobileinsights.

Why Great Design Is the Future of Content Marketing
from Mashable Tech
Although it’s still early in 2012, the importance of visual storytelling is clearly one of the year’s breakout trends. Facebook Timeline, Pinterest, and Instagram are forcing brands to think and act more visually. Couple that with the impact of mobile browsing, and these emerging trends give new meaning to the phrase “show, don’t tell.”

10 ways to use Pinterest for your business
from PR Daily
Your boards should support your strategy. Pinterest users will pin and organize your content as they see fit, but you should use your boards to help define your brand and company culture.

How to Make the Best Business Impression in 8 seconds or Less
from Forbes
The average adult attention span is 8 seconds. In reality, most people will stop listening after 5 seconds. Unless they have become hooked, they are lost or on to their next thought.  Telling someone what your business does in this amount of time is a talent and needs to be practiced word for word.

For marketing and PR, the future isn’t interactive—it’s unified
from PR Daily
“Unified marketing is about tailoring the right message to the right person at the right time,” explained Rachel Conforti, director of marketing at Definition 6. “It’s also about building genuine relationships—trying to evoke an emotional response between brands and people.”

Forrester says b-to-b marketers will increase budgets 6.8% this year
from BtoB Magazine
B-to-b marketers will increase their marketing budgets by an average of 6.8% this year, according to a report from Forrester Research.

How Fortune 500 companies use social media
from PR Daily
Want to benchmark your brand’s use of social media against that of the Fortune 500? Here’s your chance, thanks to a Go-Gulf.com infographic, which offers a host of statistics and facts about the Fortune 500’s use of social media.

Becoming a “Corporate Executive Tweeter”
from Social Media Today
In this digital age CEO’s are expected to tweet. An article by e-marketer on research done by social branding firm BRANDFog tells us that 78% of people surveyed on topics related to businesses using social media felt that CEO participation leads to better communication

5 ways to create irresistible content with limited resources
from PR Daily
A recent business study showed that 75 percent of buyers are likely to use social media in the purchase process, and 55 percent of business-to-business survey respondents search for information using social sites.

Annenberg’s PR study: Good news for the industry
from Ragan.com
The seventh biennial Generally Accepted Practices report finds public relations budgets on the rise (if only slightly), social media use on the upswing, and perhaps most surprising of all, a majority of executives on board with what their PR and communications staffs are doing.

Engagement ain’t nothing but a number – why 1% isn’t good enough
from Brian Solis
A recent study published by Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that less than 1-percent of Facebook “Fans” actually engage with brands.

Is technology PR broken?
from PR Daily
Here’s an unsexy truth: the majority of PR pros I meet are hard workers with a scary amount of knowledge about enterprise technology.

Upping the ante for b-to-b
from PRWeek US
After having spent hours upon hours over the last few years working with pure b-to-b brands on their marketing efforts, it’s become abundantly clear that the applications for social media aren’t always as immediately obvious as they are in the b-to-c sphere.

6 tips for effective Web copywriting
from PR Daily
Web writing can be difficult, but once you have mastered these six steps, you will be way ahead of the competition.

IBM study identifies four types of ‘digital personalities’
from BtoB Magazine
A new survey from IBM Corp. identified four “digital personalities” emerging among users of the desktop and mobile Web.

Tech PR: The Post-Product World of Ad Revenue
from Crawford
I tend to have a certain amount of faith in the high tech economy, but my opinion took a slight knock this morning when the WSJ quoted ad network Millennial Media’s IPO paperwork. Apparently, the folks at Millennial don’t know “when or if we will ever achieve profitability.”

How to hook readers with killer headlines and grabby leads
from Ragan.com
Headlines and leads ought to be examples of what Ragan called “refrigerator journalism,” writing that says something so valuable so concisely that someone would be compelled to cut it out and stick it on his or her refrigerator.

Pitching Notes, the Yelp of the PR Industry
from PR Daily
Pitching Notes is a new website devoted to aggregating important information about journalists in an effort to create in-depth pitching profiles accessible by anyone, free of charge.

The new definition of PR: ‘personal recommendation’
from PRWeek US
We need to start explaining to our clients that customer service is as important as PR, and that an army of half a million people screaming about how good your service is can be just as beneficial as a front-page article placement.

Study: For corporate news, journalists prefer press releases
from PR Daily
A recent survey of 72 journalists in the U.K. found that the press release is the most preferred method for receiving news about a company.

Result: The Only PR Metric That Counts
from Crawford
The only measure that counts is whether you achieve what you set out to do, a point so obvious that it’s odd how often some PR pros obscure their results behind a numeric facade rather say point blank whether they succeeded or failed.

Bold stuff for a list of 50, but after eyeballing the list (and having to look up a few terms) it does seem to be solid. I am most excited about:

• Wearable sensors (Star Trek is here!),
• Personalized medicine therapeutics (I’m over 40),
• Nanoviricides (Had to look it up, again 40+), and
• Carbon-fixing technologies (Do I need to say why?).

• Wearable sensors (Think about it),
• Artificial photosynthesis (Not sure why but seems like something we should not mess with, i.e. Jurassic Park but with plants),
• Energy harvesting (Can you say Matrix? I saw what Keanu Reeves when through), and
• Inductive wireless power transfer (I would worry about walking to a wireless “third rail” and getting an unexpected and unwanted jolt of energy).

Seriously, from the list below what excites or worries you…and what did the smart folks at Frost & Sullivan miss?

1. Accelerated carbonation technology

2. Biomass-to-renewable oil conversion technology

3. Microchannel process technology

4. Carbide-derived carbon (CDC) technology

5. Breathable antibacterial coatings, products

6. Plastic conversion to oil by gasolysis

7. Algal-based platform for production of a wide variety of chemicals

8. Destagnation and destratification of water

9. Non-woven coating spray-on technology

10. Artificial photosynthesis

11. BPA-free epoxy lining of plastic bottles

12. Hydrogen storage technology

13. Production of liquid biofuel from industrial waste gases containing carbon monoxide

14. Mini-chromosome gene stacking technology

15. Nanoparticles for use as anti-viral agents or “nanoviricides”

16. Substitute pancreas for diabetics using stem cells

17. Wireless sensors and ubiquitous sensors

18. Energy harvesting

19. Wearable sensors

20. Fiber optic sensor for security

21. Structural health monitoring sensors

22. Intelligent robots

23. Flexible electronics

24. 3D integration

25. Smart grid networks

26. Mobile projection systems

27. Advanced storage technologies (MRAM/PCM)

28. Hyperspectral imaging

29. Haptics and touch technology

30. Energy-efficient lighting technologies

31. EUV for higher transistor density

32. Energy-efficient variable frequency drives (VFD)

33. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems

34. Micro and nano manufacturing technologies

35. Machine vision systems

36. Charging infrastructure for electric vehicles

37. Inductive wireless power transfer

38. 3D cell culture systems

39. Personalized medicine therapeutics

40. Dendritic cell therapy

41. Vaccines for infectious disease and cancer

42. High-throughput sequencing technology

43. The infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution

44. Quantum computing

45. Energy management and carbon accounting systems

46. Fuel cell technology

47. Sea water desalination technologies

48. Green building technologies

49. Carbon-fixing technologies

50. Medical imaging technology

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4P7lhj78uA

The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) released the sixth annual State of the Industry: Technology in Georgia Report on March 28, 2012. As one of the nation’s leading technology states, during 2011, Georgia’s technology community had an economic impact of $113.1 billion in sales. Technology now accounts for more than one-third of Georgia’s total exports, and the state gained 6,000 technology jobs in 2011.

The technology industry is a major part of Georgia’s economy and vital to the state’s future. TAG’s annual report provides stakeholders with the information needed to support legislative, economic development and promotional efforts for the information technology sector. To learn more about the top 10 findings of 2012 State of the Industry: Technology in Georgia report, visit www.tagstateoftheindustry.com.

Marketers ‘get’ social
from BtoB Magazine
For those who still believe b-to-b companies don’t get social media or don’t care, last year should have been a wake-up call.

Leaders See Positive Role and Growth for PR
from Culpwrit
Conducted by the USC Annenberg Strategic Communications and Public Relations Center in conjunction (SCPRC) with the Institute for Public Relations (IPR), the GAP VII study summarizes industry perspective from 620 senior communicators.

Facebook buys Instagram: What does it mean for your brand?
from PR Daily
Facebook announced on Monday that it acquired the popular photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 billion, marking the social network’s biggest acquisition to date. What does this mean for brands? Here’s London-based PR professional Adam Vincenzini’s take.

The Perfect Length Of A Presentation Is….
from Mr. Media Training
Twenty minutes. At least that’s what new research from Maureen Murphy at the University of North Texas (UNT) suggests. Author Susan Weinschenk, writer of the forthcoming book 100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People, agrees. She points out that the terrific TED talks are usually 20 minutes long.

What you need to know about the state of social media
from Ragan.com
Social Media Examiner recently released its 4^th annual survey of social media marketing; 3,800 marketers answered the survey. Eighteen percent of B2B marketers, as opposed to 14 percent of B2C marketers, say they’ve used social media for three or more years.

LinkedIn introduces business targeting tools
from BtoB Magazine
LinkedIn Corp. will launch two new tools to enable businesses to better target followers and report on their brand engagement.

PR pros, 10 ways to woo journalists on Twitter
from Ragan.com
Twitter isn’t just for building your loyal fan base. It’s also an excellent place to start building your network of journalists. Here are 10 tips to help you begin making valuable connections with journalists.

6 tips for becoming more persuasive on social media
from The Publicity Hound’s Blog
Social media provides many tools that help marketers, businesses, and bloggers persuade readers to become repeat visitors and eventually customers. Here are six tips for effectively persuading visitors with social media.

How to create a Facebook page that’s irresistible to fans
from PR Daily
For social media managers, Facebook brand pages are a relatively simple way to connect with fans in real time. Making your Facebook page a destination isn’t easy, but some brands are doing it with aplomb. Here’s how.

Targeted media to grow 8.1% this year
from BtoB Magazine
The targeted media category, which includes b-to-b media, branded entertainment, direct marketing, outsourced custom content and pure-play consumer Internet & mobile services, is expected to grow 8.1% this year.

While it’s not the end of the world if your company’s CEO doesn’t tweet, a Burson-Marstellar study in 2011 found that 77 percent of Fortune Global 100 companies are using Twitter. Although many brands post regularly on Twitter, how many times have you seen the CEO or CMO tweet? Outside of the SMB world, I’m guessing not very often. While they are few and far between, a study by social media branding firm BRANDfog found that consumers and employees regard company leaders who engage on social media platforms positively therefore affecting the view of not just the brand, but also of the executive leadership team. Here are a few statistics pulled from the survey:

• According to the respondents, 78 percent said CEO participation in social media leads to better communication, 71 percent said it leads to improved brand image, and 64 percent said it provides more transparency.
• In fact, 86 percent of respondents rated CEO social media engagement as somewhat important, very important or mission-critical. At 94 percent, respondents said C-suite social media participation actually enhances brand image.
• Looking internally, 82 percent of employee respondents trust a company more when the CEO and leadership team communicate via social media.

Although these numbers clearly indicate the importance of C-suite transparency in social media, C-suite buy-in along with speed of adoption of new online technologies continue to be two major challenges for many organizations. To view graphs and additional information, read the following article.

One 18-year-old boy she recently interviewed wistfully said to her, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation.” WOW! This is just sad and is not good for our profession.

The art of true conversations with the give and take, the half-baked comments and the real person-to-person connections is what makes us human. It is also what makes the marketing and PR industry both exciting and important.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Xr3AsBEK4

If you sleep with your smartphone, prefer to be with your iPad than with a friend, or favor emails over conversations with colleagues, you need to find 19 minutes and 48 seconds to see what Turkle has to say.  In fact, I think anyone that is paid to communicate professionally should see this presentation.

It just might cause you to rethink a few things. At the very least, I hope it will give you something to talk about, with maybe a coworker over coffee in the break room.

Study: ‘Big Data’ poses opportunities, challenges
from BtoB Magazine
According to “Marketing in the Digital Age,” 75% of respondents said understanding “Big Data” can dramatically improve their marketing efforts, and 90% said digital marketing can reduce customer acquisition costs. However, 58% said they lacked the skills and technology to perform data analytics, and more than 70% said they aren’t able to leverage the value of customer data.

12 incredibly useful digital tools for PR
from PR Daily
What are the key social media tools that PR professionals need to go from bumbling amateur to results-driven superstar? Here are 12 of them.

Facebook Explores Search
from March Communications
Though Mark Zuckerberg tends to deny direct competition with Google, Facebook is rumored to be entering the search market. Though search has not been a priority for the social networking powerhouse, this Businessweek article reports that more than 20 Facebook engineers are busy working on an improved search engine within the site.

10 Ways to Humanize Your Brand On Social Media
from Mashable Business
Marketers are suckers for a catch phrase, from “join the conversation” to “think like a publisher.” Now, thanks largely to Facebook Timeline for brand pages, the new marketing slogan has quickly become, “humanize the brand.”

15 ways to boost your tweets’ click-through rate
from Ragan.com
How do you get someone to click on your links on Twitter? It’s one of the most pressing questions I see day in, day out—and rightly so. Attracting more people who like what you are posting is essential to success on Twitter. Here are 15 top techniques for improving your click rate.

Report: No. 1 social media question: ‘How do I measure?’
from Ragan.com
SocialMediaExaminer.com released its fourth annual social media report and, based on the responses of more than 3,800 surveyed, it reveals how businesses are using social media to grow and promote their businesses. In reading the report, there were several conclusions that I found interesting for anyone grappling with how to effectively integrate social media into their communications plans.

Custom Content Conference: New technologies enable, complicate content marketing
from BtoB Magazine
The major theme dominating the three-day Custom Content Conference, last month in Washington, D.C., was how technology has both enabled and complicated “engagement,” that elusive goal of all content marketing.

8 simple, yet powerful types of headlines
from PR Daily
The first thing most readers notice in print or online is a headline. Here are eight categories appropriate for selling something, whether it’s a product or an idea, along with a sample headline of that type:

The Objective News Story: Dead or Alive?
from Crawford by James Crawford
The New York Times story excoriating China for engaging in pay-for-play media, much of it placed by U.S. PR firms, might have horrified us all but for two things. First, the Times is a century late breaking the story — paying for coverage has long been common practice in other lands, and not just in emerging nations. Second, U.S. media are in no position to point fingers.

Top Five Reasons To Work With Startups On The PR Front
from Storytelling Techniques For Effective Business Communications
I decided to draft my own top five list on the benefits of working with start-up ventures.

The million dollar question is how consumers perceive trust, innovation and privacy in relation to these brands versus their primary financial institution. In the past year, consumers have shifted away from large financial institutions to smaller community institutions, signaling a sea change. But will 2012 be the year mobile payments truly take hold?

According to Yankee Group, more than 2 billion new users have adopted mobile technology in the past five years. Additionally, the firm projects U.S. tablet sales to total nearly 25 million in 2012 alone. Predictably, flip phones are going the way of the buffalo and smart phone purchases are increasing. I purchased a tablet in the last five years and I’ve been a smartphone user even longer than that. Though I have purchased items with my phone in the past, I’m not entirely ready to ditch my wallet yet in favor of mobile.

A surprising trend among smartphone purchases is the growth in the prepaid market. According to The Stevenson Company’s latest TraQline Wireless report, smartphones are gaining share at a rapid rate in both prepaid and postpaid, and now represent more than 50 percent of all phone purchases.  As a percentage of total cell phone purchases, prepaid purchases have increased 370 basis points from 2009-2011, and now represent 17 percent of total cell phone purchases. The top five prepaid smart phone retailers gained share year over year.

So what does this year hold for mobile commerce? Only time will tell. How you are using your mobile phone today is likely to evolve with the options available. As more retailers make paying by phone an option, it will be interesting to watch consumer adoption rates of this technology.

The author of The Happiness Advantage delivers this message in his TEDxBloomington presentation that the Arketi account team viewed earlier this year. Achor states that 75 percent of our job success is predicted not by intelligence, but by our optimism, social support network and the ability to manage energy and stress in a positive way. To achieve this, we must rewire our brains to think more positively.

One way to do this, Achor explains, is to keep track of three things that you are grateful for each day. In just a two minute span of time repeated 21 days in a row, it is possible to train our brains to think more optimistically and more successfully.

Following the presentation, each Arketi account member received a small notebook to do just that. I’ve been writing down my three gratitudes each day and have continued doing so past the recommended 21-day period. For me, this exercise has been easy to implement into my daily routine, and I truly feel as though my overall level of happiness has increased as a result.

I encourage you to give this exercise a try! If you’re a team leader, consider sharing Achor’s presentation and help to make your employees happier. In just 42 minutes, you can unearth a happier and more successful you. And that return on investment is definitely worth it.

Guide to infographics: 3 essential tips for creating them
from PR Daily
If you know the underlying principles that help shape the truly good ones, you’ll have a better handle on infographics design and how to build a visual winner from the ground up.

The Best PR Plans and Results: Insights from PRSA Silver Anvil Judging
from Authentic PR Counsel
Having judged in many different categories over the years, I continued to see consistent patterns in the most brilliant PR programs and, of course, the less than brilliant, no matter what the category.

How B2B companies are using social media
from PR Daily News Feed
B-to-B marketers have achieved some fairly impressive successes—particularly when it comes to selling, reports an IBM study. The study revealed a 400 percent increase in sales in the first quarter tied to a pilot program of social selling. That and more are included in this infographic from InsideView.

The Importance of Public Relations(hips)
from March Communications
I had the pleasure of attending the Publicity Club of New England’s tech industry panel last week. Whereas past events focused on making the most of product launches, for example, the journalist speakers this go-round stressed the best ways of building solid, mutually beneficial relationships with influencers.

5 ways to use Twitter more effectively
from Ragan.com
Social media scientist Dan Zarrella recently published an infographic with great insights on when and how to tweet. Among the infographic’s highlights: Place links 25 percent of the way through your tweet, include widely retweeted words and phrases, and tweet later in the day.

Was Analytics Google’s REAL Social Media Missing Link?
from Marketing Pilgrim
With today’s announcement of social media integration into Google Analytics we may now have a vision into one way that Google could put a hurt on the likes of Facebook and Twitter without having to be a social media giant.

Study: Only 21 percent of companies measure social media
from PR Daily
Despite widespread use of social media among businesses, the majority of organizations don’t measure social media ROI. According to a recent survey by SHRM, only 21 percent of organizations measure social media ROI.

10 types of content that drive comments and shares
from Ragan.com
A while ago we talked about 10 content ideas that elicit comments and shares. The comments were full of more really good ideas. Here are 10 additional ideas to spark comments and shares.

A Fool-Proof Formula for Easily Creating Compelling Content
from copyblogger
The secret to prolifically creating excellent content isn’t inspiration or brilliance — it’s found in structure, planning, and research.

PR budgets up, but AOR relationships on the decline
from PRWeek US
PR budgets are mostly up compared with two years ago, and measurement and evaluation are also on the rise, according to findings from the USC Annenberg Strategic Communication and Public Relations Center.

The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting piece recently around the pending IPO of social media juggernaut Facebook and whether or not its 27-year-old CEO is up for the job of becoming the youngest CEO in history to lead a Fortune 1000 company. The same “youth vs. experience” debate seems to be playing out among the ranks of B2B marketing organizations – creating a serious challenge for CMOs and Senior Marketing execs.

If you look at the ads being placed by technology organizations, it appears organizations are placing higher value on enthusiasm, passion and understanding of latest marketing trends than overall years of experience.  And they seem willing to trade a title for less experience –and the lower compensation demands that often accompany less experienced candidates.  For example, I came across a recruiting ad from a small technology company that is becoming all too common in recruiting circles. Looking for a Director of Marketing (a “second in command” type position from the description) to drive a large part of the company’s demand generation and web strategy efforts, the company outlined a long list of attributes including enthusiasm, passion for marketing, high energy, etc.  The experience required for this Director level job: just three years.

While I’m willing to concede that youth brings fresh ideas, enthusiasm and a generational perspective that those of us in the grey-hair camp might struggle with from time to time, I can’t help wondering if this technology organization might be better served looking for a more seasoned executive to lead such an important part of their operation.  And if B2B marketing organizations overall wouldn’t be better off placing a higher value on seasoned staff.  Especially as marketers are being asked to do more with less and make every activity count in a measurable way, does it not make sense to seek out the “been there, done that” base?

Consider the following recent research items:

• From a UK-based Fournaise Group study — 73% of CEO’s stated that “marketers lack business credibility and are not the business growth generators they should be.”
• From Sirius Decisions research — less than $1,000 is spent annually on training of marketing personnel
• From the same study — only 1.1% of Marketing execs responded with a yes when asked if their marketing organization had the right skill set to succeed.

There’s no doubt skill requirements have changed and ongoing training investment must increase if we expect to keep our seat at the executive table.  But maybe it makes sense to look for a few more seasoned marketing professionals and help them sharpen their skills with some of those training dollars rather than default to a younger candidate. It may cost a bit more up front and you may have to hear a few war stories about how it was “back in the day”, but you may find that creating bench strength by adding a few veterans that are willing to add to their skills portfolio leaves you better prepared for the challenges ahead.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, written by a productivity consultant, these very tools are undermining our ability to get work done. The culprit: we have so many options that we are often in a state of inertia because we don’t know what tools to use.

For example, how often have you said, “I’m in so many meetings that I am never able to get my work done”? Or, the other busy person’s standard line, “There just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done”?

If you resemble these statements, you may need to adopt a set of best practices or ways to make quick decisions, while staying focused.

According to the article, there are several sequential steps you can take to become more focused and, as a result, complete regular and even major tasks. Here are a few of them:

• Write it down. The article suggests that people jot down everything that has their attention, including work and personal tasks. This exercise helps people feel in control.
• Assign goals to each task. Decide what results you want to accomplish for each task and apply a two-minute rule — that any action that can be finished in two minutes should be done in the moment.
• Organize reminders of your remaining “to-dos,” including emails you need to send and follow up phone calls you need to make.

The article goes on to state that people should make everyday decisions on a more conscious level rather than reacting to the squeaky wheel. To read the full article, click here.

Hot trend in PR: Working with startups
from PR Daily
Tech PR is hot—scorching, actually. As tech startups continue to pop up trying to be the next Facetwitgooglepon, they need publicity. So where do they turn? A burgeoning sector of PR firms that specialize in creating buzz for startups, reports The New York Observer.

B-to-b media increase revenue 6.9% in 2011
from BtoB Magazine
Total b-to-b media revenue grew 6.9% to $26.5 billion last year, according to Business Information Network data released by American Business Media.

3 ways to prepare for the changes to Google search
from Ragan.com
Google is revamping its search results, and the changes will likely affect brands. According to a report in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, Google results will include more facts and direct answers to searches.

PR pro’s new title: content marketer
from PR Daily
It’s safe to say that we can now start calling PR people “marketers.” We’re not just relating to publics but trying to learn how people tick and why they purchase or pass along something.

Leveraging Current Events for PR Pitching Opps
from March Communications
Capitalizing on current events and relating them to your clients’ expertise, products or services is a great way to engage the media and keep up a steady stream of news and thought leadership.

Branding Overkill: Has SXSW Lost its Cool?
from Crawford
A review in the Washington Post got it right in lashing out at the “oppressive” corporate presence and resulting sponsorship fatigue suffered by this year’s festival-goers.

Time magazine unveils the 140 best Twitter feeds of 2012
from PR Daily
Looking for a few more people or organizations to follow on Twitter? Time magazine this week revealed its list of the 140 best Twitter feeds of the year. See who made the list here.

Happy 6th birthday, Twitter! Here are 40 useful tweets for brands
from PR Daily
Wednesday marks the sixth birthday of Twitter. After six years, the social network has more than 465 million accounts, sending roughly 175 million tweets a day. So, to celebrate Twitter’s birthday, we’re giving you a gift. From a story that ran on PR Daily last year, here’s a list of 40 possible tweets to send to your followers.

Quantifying The Intangible Quality Called Buzz
by Lou Hoffman
Ask 10 people to define buzz and you’ll get seven different answers. But how do you quantify buzz for a company, especially one in the B2B space?

5 steps to a successful measurement program
from Ragan.com
I have an uncomplicated, five-step approach. It might be helpful to you, especially if
you have a small budget and no access to fancy dashboards.

Who to market to?

As a BtoB marketer, personalized, targeted marketing is key. (Check out Sami’s blog on how to get persona(l) with your buyers for more on targeted marketing! ) There are several ways to segment emails including lead source (i.e., search, phone inquiry, or event), demographic data (i.e., age, location, gender) and behavior (i.e., time on site, links clicked, and pages viewed). In fact, according to the February survey findings, 55 percent of organizations currently segment by lead source.

With that in mind, you might want to re-examine WHO you are currently marketing to, HOW you’re marketing to them, and WHAT you’re marketing.

Why this matters?

E-newsletters can have several business objectives. From increasing awareness to building thought leadership or increasing sales, the e-newsletters are more than another platform to tout recent accomplishments and the latest corporate and industry news. For example, email conversion rate benchmarks are significantly higher for BtoB than BtoC companies for newsletter conversion rates in the lead generation and direct sales categories.

Right message?

Now you know how to segment the target market and the purpose of the e-newsletter, marketers must ensure they have the right message. The content of the e-newsletter must be personalized to your target audience and tailored to meet your recipient’s needs…not yours. Once the e-newsletter makes its way past the spam filters to the recipient’s inbox, there’s still competition against other emails and factors competing for recipients’ time and attention. The study found that “social media competing for readers’ time” is the most significant challenge marketers face today.

You have a new product? Great, but will this product solve a problem or meet some type of need? You’re celebrating the company’s 10 year anniversary? Congrats, but what contributions have you made to the industry and how will your recipients benefit from this? In case you’re still unsure about the importance of personalized marketing and content, the survey also found that 71 percent of BtoB respondents agreed that specific business/industry information is the most widespread personalization factor.

Before your organization puts out its next e-newsletter, take a quick look to see how your lists have been segmented to ensure you’re sending it to the right people through the right channel with the right message.

“Join Now and get a Cute Little Ass”

Ok, it’s not BtoB and it’s not high-tech. In fact, it was printed on an 11 x 17 sheet of paper taped to the window of a pizza and wings joint (although great placement if you ask me).

That said, this “shocking” ad communicates a lot and at least left me with a smile.

However, I still did not join the gym so I guess the ROI on behavior change is low, but on creativity… well, I will let YOU be the judge.

4 essential tips for product launches in the Digital Age
from PR Daily
Here are a few tips to consider next time your company or brand is launching a product or new initiative.

What the USP is not
from PRWeek US
In real-world marketing, a “unique selling proposition” is seldom unique for very long. Successful promotions are mimicked, price programs matched, and distribution channel advantages compromised.

‘BtoB’: Email marketing strong, but best practices sometimes lag
from BtoB Magazine
Email is particularly favored for its ability to acquire customers and nurture prospects, but there are widely divergent approaches to email frequencies and opt-in best practices, according to a new study from BtoB.

Fresh content, photos gain higher click-throughs
from BtoB Magazine
Care taken in crafting online content and ensuring pieces are updated pay off for marketers in greater engagement, according to a study by content marketing technology company HiveFire Inc.

Forget the pretense! NYT columnist explains how to pitch
from PR Daily
David Pogue is one of the most influential voices in the consumer tech world. Last year, PR Daily publisher Mark Ragan asked Pogue how he wants to be pitched. The resulting video remains one of the most popular on PR Daily.

Just showing up is not enough at SXSW
from  PRWeek US
SXSW isn’t a trade show in the classic sense, which is inherently spectatorial. It is truly a participatory experience where technology is front and center.

How to write blog posts search engines will love
from Ragan.com
Blogging is one of the oldest forms of social media, and it continues to play a pivotal role in social media strategies. Here are some tips to help you write blog posts search engines will love.

Report: Consumers trust branded websites more than ads
from PR Daily
Branded websites are trusted more than TV ads, banner ads, text ads, online video ads, and ads on social networks, according to Nielsen’s Digital Consumer Report.

Avoiding a ‘culture of fear’ in the attention economy
from PRWeek US
As marketers, we describe it as a need to “cut through the clutter” or a desire to be “disruptive,” but what we are really talking about is commanding our share of the attention economy among consumers.

Social media is about social science not technology
from Brian Solis
As an umbrella term, we should think about social media and mobile behavior as it’s related to psychology, anthropology, communication, economics, human geography, et al. After all, everything comes down to people.