Facts not Fame should be the measure of Marketing ROI

It has become a major trend in Marketing and business in general that what is well known, pervasive and accepted by these very criteria must be inherently better, more effective than a less known, cheaper and possible unheard of tool, strategy or product.  The reality is Marketers like the proverbial man with a hammer tend to see all problems as nails.  Marketers have to be careful when evaluating new services, strategies and techniques to minimize the affect of  branding, product placement and industry acceptance from coloring their judgement of the effectiveness of  new offering.
Case in point several new methods of radically improving app adoption have sprung up lately, but my informal survey of my extended marketing circles find very few other martketers in the B2B arena from adopting these tools.  Having recently read Professor Dan Areily's book on Behavioural psychology, called the Upside of Irrationality,  inwhich he explains the all too common problem of countries/groups/companies/indivduals reluctance to adopt ideas that where developed by others which he refers to as the 'Not Invented here' affect.  Or more humorously as the 'tooth brush' affect in that everyone needs one, everyone has one but no one wants to use anyone else's.
What I would add to this excellent theory is the idea in industry and marketing the affect is also more pronounced to the risk adversion associated with being the 'Guinea pig' for novel tools, techniqies or campaigns.  So many great ideas and campaigns are stifled due to the hunt for ROI measures to justify the expenditure.  Given the difficulty in many B2B marketing efforts from print ads, tradeshows and direct mailers its extremely difficult to gain support and finances to try things outside the box.  Saddly, Marketing priniciples almost scream that differientation and authenticity are the keys to building Brand recognition in the first place.  So paradoxically, playing it safe is a form of industry herding (again paraphrasing Dr. Ariely's limiting concept of self -herding), inwhich differientation is attempted within a incremental range and no further.  Truly, if we are to generate real ROI we need to attempt to implement new ideas from wherever they arise and to measure them solely on whether they work or not.

California Dreaming: Challenges in Infrastructure and development

While the focus of this blog is primarily b2b marketing and more specifically how it relates to industrial machinery marketing, I would like to digress a little in this post as I am presently in California meeting with our sales team and touring the surrounding industrial areas of Fresno, San Diego and Riverside on a photo shoot focused on our excellent construction products.  Having not been to California from sometime several impressions are what I would like to highlight.  Namely, the heightend erosion and decay of the great highways and byways that seem to be busting at the seams with traffic (read users) in strark contrast to the limited trucking and industrial activity usually seen in past visits.
It appears the need for construction equipment should be at an all time high and that an infrastructural boom would be in the offing due the real and present issues with traffic, but this of course is not the case.  In fact sales to contractors, and construction companies are at near unseen low, right across many competitor brands and suppliers who in past years lead their perspective markets.  Many have speculated as to the root causes from the Democratic debt loads to the mismanagement of key State funds earmarked for roads and infrastructural development over a decade or so in California.  From my limited outsider perspective, there needs to be a chicken before the egg approach to revitalization of public roads and bridges.  Namely, communities need to remember how their roads came into being in the first place.  Development and social pressure for services were driven by core business needs.  Put another way the exact opposite of  'build it and they will come'. Rather they are here and we need to build it approach.  This fact saddly is lost on many municipalities that like households need to decide if shiny Xmas lights and fancy trimming will take priority over more mundane but fundamental needs such as rent/mortages and utility bills.  No one or government can spend their way out of debt but at some point the reality that key assets such as roads and bridges are necessary and ignoring their repair and upgrade will only end badly.

Global Shift in Wealth by 2016: What it means for Business Marketers

According to all major economic think tanks, the economies of China and possibly India are on track to surpass that of the U.S. by 2016.  With the demographic profile of India  as young and educatted middle class combined with English, we will see a growing shift in Wealth in Asia to unprecedented levels since the middle ages.  In fact, there are more billionaires in India than anywhere else except the U.S. with the return of many high level US trained executives to Asia in recent years and the rise of Asia focused MBA programs what will the Marketing world of 2016 possibly look like.
Frankly, with the emergence of web/social media  and soon the semantic web (think a learning web where your choices determine the brands, media and news channels that will be presented to you - as a personal segment of one) the world will be a truly, flat and wired world in lines with Thomas Friedman's well read series of books on the subject.  But I would argue, that with the increased  customization and specialization of information combined with the mega trends towards mobile and real time augmented tools, think a hyper version of google maps, comsumers will more and more fall into electonic tribes with marketing barriers that could be as real as geography and language were just a few decades earlier.
   I believe, as B2B marketers we must prepare to evolve with social media, cross promotional platforms that will strength our messaging, almost akin to a chorus strengthens the power and richness of the human voice.  There will be a continued evolvement of both media platforms and tools but the need to design and implement robust messaging that will engage real people where and when they could realistically evaluate, purchase and use our valued products or service offerings is essential.  The greatest danger I see for the future is complaceny, either in testing new media outlets and tools or ensuring  we are collaborating in the success of those who are using or potentially could use are products and services.  With this in mind the world of 2016 will be Asia focused, young, wired and multifaceted in both economic, cultural and technological needs, but it will be very familiar if we begin today to embrace the possibilities in terms of added consumer input, competitive intelligence and market responsiveness. 

Black Friday: lessons for B2B Marketing

With Thanksgiving Turkey dinner not even fully digested and plenty of leftover still to be eaten thousands have been whipped into a buying frenzy all over the America, hunting irresistible bargains just in time to put them under the Christmas tree.  What is of interest in Canada and elsewhere globally the targeting of discounts by Canadians on line and the rebuttal sales campaigns by Canadian retailers to ensure they made every effort to capture buyer's dollars before they flew south for the winter bargains.  As a marketer whose main focus is international technical mining equipment and other technical products, what lesson does this retail extravaganza have for B2B Marketing? 
Well, in a nut shell it is the ability to affect positive buyer behaviour.  We sadly in the B2B space have in many instances convinced our selves that our markets buy predominantly in technical, reason based factors and are thus immune to emotionally charged calls to action.  The reality is emotionally charged factors are at work in all purchasing decisions whether they are retail or capital in nature, because to put it bluntly we are dealing we real people.  As such, it would be erroneous for B2B marketers to not seek to develop campaigns aimed at charging buying prospects with time based incentives, elegant value adds that are limited to a specific campaign and a sense of high drama when launching or introducing new technical products.  Our customers will by their very nature evaluate comparatively our technical specification and total ROI, but underneath all this left brain thinking the right brain emotional balances will be weighing many of the intangibles that are key to any buy decision making:
-Status and related status affects of ownership
-personal, career risk management and group approval
-reduction of effort and or workload-peace of mind

We need to look at Black Friday, Cyber Monday and many other retail events to see what triggers such as  price and related buyer behaviours can teach us so that we to can ignite positive sales engagement and growth on demand.

5 ways to Create real Value: B2B

What is really needed into todays ever competitve market place is to genuinely provide value for both existing and prospective customers, but the age old question is who is going to do it, pay for it or deliver this added value?  The more refined question is how can we create real value with what is already available, what elegant trade offs can be provided to create real added value to customers.

Here are a list of useful ideas:

1) Industry standards explained:  I don't know how many times I have contracted or commissioned a service only to discover that their where added fees, permits or taxes that only after purchasing turn out to be standard practises  perculiar to this industry such as airport taxes, courtesy fees etc.  Many new clients would appreciate and value having a clear report/brochure outlining such standard practises and reducing unwelcome surprises.
2) Comparison information: Many complex product offerings require near expert level understanding to adequately compare features and benefits.  A simple, direct feature-benefit card or link could assist and inform buyers decision process, which is a real value to busy buyers.
3) How to: Simple direct videos and instructions should be provided already but any stand alone video, even of low production quality that assists a common use or feature is greatly appreciated. Such as crowd sourced video of best way to pack your product for travel, mount on car, etc. Will win friends in the market.
4) How not to videos: Many product suppliers shy away from such negative content but common problems are best explained by reacting what causes the problem to educate customers not to do this.
Timex after their famous 'takes a licking and keeps on ticking' ads of the early 80's had some major warranty issues with consumers who had hit their product with a hammer on purpose, this of course was sorted by a what not to do video ad.
5)Crowd sourcing: Without a doubt this is becoming the best elegant trade off in marketing today, think Wikipedia for your products.  The more you can build a community that is passionate, informed and willing to share insights, answers and suggestions to it product community the more value can be provided with little extra resources.

New Boss in China- Real Branding opportunity for China

Like so many others in the industrial and mining global marketing space, we have been trying to digest the recent one party leadership or succession plan/race in  China.  At first glance, many of the elements of choosing a new leader within the planned communist system have similarities to  engimatic and cloistered procedure for choosing a new Catholic Pontiff.  While, the Politburo decision (25 member council)  is conducted by the directions of the central committee, consisting of 371 seating party members, the choice really rests in the upper echelon of the standing directorate of 9 members.  With a limited two term mandate of five years each this procedure has led to little in the way of surprises in the transmission of one of the most coveted and powerful political positions in the world today.
What is interesting from a B2B marketing perspective is given the enormity of the role and the global attention being directed towards the proceedings in Beijing, its quite puzzling the limited public exposure both locally and internationally about the character, history and temperament of the key candidates. With pundits predicting that Xi Jinping will bag the top seat as President and most likely Li Keqiang the Premiership, the question is who are these guys?
The nature of a one party system and the penchant of Chinese inscrutability its not surprising the limited public profiles on offer in stark comparison to western 'tell all' democratic campaigns.  The internal alliance building strategies of the Chinese Communist party are well known and can account for many of the gaps in our knowledge of the prospective leaders.  Given the global and local influence these men (at least in this round of key delegates) wield it will be a real challenge diplomatically to ensure China's new bosses are positively accepted both locally and internationally.
  As an open mental marketing exercise, I would suggest this challenge could if handled skillfully turnout to be a real opportunity, much like the initial warming to the west that Deng Xiaoping orchestrated in the early 80's after the demise of Mao Zedong.  What seems critical is to fill in many holes in the bios and at the same time to ensure policies related to trade and the environment are maintained, and if change is on the cards that it allows some collaborative elements to the wider global audience.  It would be my deepest hope that given the economic and political rise of China the new faces seek to smile warmly on increased trade and access to local markets.

Innovation is no longer Innovative

Its official the word 'innovative', along with 'unique' and possibly 'green' have become some of the most over used B2B marketing adjectives.  If this is in fact becoming the case, what has contributed to it and honestly can anything substantial be done to fix it in the future.  Everyday we see the birth and death of words and phrases from our common lexicon, and far brighter and educated individuals can explain the vagaries of why we still use 'uncouth' and not 'couth' or how 'cool' became a measure of style over relative temperature.  What is of interest to the tribe of marketing is when has a word, phrase or expression met or passed its sell by date?  Curiously, in the B2C camp of marketing this is far more vitriolic and cut throat topic, having brands rise and fall over a change in phraseology.  The fortunes of Nike in the late 80's with its then newly minted 'Just do it', is not quite capturing the same imaginative space with some of its newer brands, seeking edgier slogans such as 'nothing is impossible'.
 Generally, marketing/advertising/branding 101 theory implies one needs to reposition a campaign/message/brand when customers vote with their feet/eyes/dollars( and Yuan where the case maybe) for a fresher alternative.  However, in the B2B marketing world where quantitative project criteria tend to significantly outweigh emotional ones in buying decisions, many lean toward the product is the message and as such does not need the same marketing efforts as consumer goods.  In my limited opinion, this is a serious misunderstanding of the value of B2B Marketing's role and value.  Words need to reflect thoughts, ideas and ultimately feelings, that can convince, influence and persuade regardless the medium employed, or business sector engaged in.  What is essential is to continue to use well worn/tested words such as innovative, but to frame them in a fresher context.  For example, a statement like,  'this is the most innovative X bearing for Y application', is truly a noise inducing message, a kin to the face book equivalent of, 'i just fed kitty'! Rather, saying, 'X bearing has been producing Z savings/output/etc which is a truly innovative trend in today's bearing sector', might garner more business thought leadership.  While not totally digressing from the well worn one can see that business clients appetite for the regular, and mundane is rapidly diminishing along with the words used to express it.  If we as professional B2B marketers hope to affect change we need to constantly find points of truth and seek to experiment with the words we use to frame them, in order to entice, fascinate and delight our audience.