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. 

US Politics North of the Border and its Global Effect

Whether ones political viewpoint is fundamentally Republican (conservative here in Canada) or Democratic (read Liberal in Canada) the burning business question North and South is what and whom will be good for jobs and business?  Having recently spent the better part of September in Las Vegas at the pre-eminent mining equipment tradeshow Minexpo, several interesting diferences from a marketing perspective dawned on me.  Namely, US media tends to  silo around a left or right wing world view, ala FOX for the right and MSBNC for the left.  Flipping between them as a Canadian I found the dialogue unidimensional and more troubling simplified in the extreme. This is a degree difference from the more layed back Canadian media that atleast on first pass pretends to be balanced in their perspectives.  Secondly, the direct split of business interests along party lines with almost all my U.S. business associates cleary in the Romney camp.  Given the historical benefits to Canadian business exports under past Republican administrations I must admit my personal leanings towards Romney as well, but the point of interest as an outsider and a marketing professional was the clear difference from visiting Mexican, Canadian, Russian and Korean business people I had a chance to discuss global trade and the impact of the upcoming US elections results on possible growth in the mining sector and trade in general. 
The most prevailing opinion amongst non American business people was that regardless of Left or Right leanings the need to reduce debt and stimulate real infrastructural spending was going to determine whether the US and global mineral markets would grow or shrink.  Given the recognition of most educated business people that there is a real need to expand the political debates in the US election and globally to really address the fundamental drivers of prosperity, increased production and cost containment.  As an outsider looking in I can only hope that US business will come together to focus attention on key issues and limit the highjacking of marketing and media channels for fruitless partisan point scoring in the ever connected world.

Outsourcing in a Technical B2B Marketer

 In general marketing terms there are no clear trends toward outsourcing over insourcing of both advertising materials and content development .  A traditional, comparison FMCG (fast moving consumable goods) / retail and b2b marketing usually resulted in the following.  B2C tended to lean toward outsourced Mcomm companies due to large hetrogenous markets and low consumer risk per order.  Alternately, the industrial b2b marketer is faced with several barriers to effective outsourcing, namely highly technical products, small groups of target decision makers and higher levels of risk per order.  As such, many b2b marketers to be effective work in close association with engineering, and technical sales in order to develop content and advertising that express intimate understand of  the specialized requirements of these narrow markets.  Given the recent shift toward crowd sourcing and specific information on demand, many opportunities to recycle databased information now has given rise to the expert outsourced marketer, who while having limited specific sector knowledge develops easy to use interfaces that allow customers in the 'know' to query exactly the information they are seeking.   This is truly a unique approach to marketing in that through robust analytics a mass marketing approach can be effectively outsourced but provide specific, segmented and actionable intel on narrow and specialized b2b markets.

Marketing planning-Put the cart before the horse!

Sometimes the old sayings are the most valuable.  How many times have we heard put the cart before the horse?   Similarly, how many times have we heard when doing our forward marketing planning to focus on strategy before tactics.  While, this seems well worn and blindingly obvious several key issues can cause us to unwittingly muddle tactics with strategy and not even realize our error. 
The most common issue is the limited executive time usually allocated for strategic planning.  In most corporate environments, the senior managers will either go away for weekend or set aside several days for planning.  The lead manager usually the CEO or presidents focus is generally on having built group consensus and hopefully an actionable list /plan for the coming quarter, year or disignated time frame.  As such there is an underlying pressure or tension to limit or eliminate indepth senario discussions based on possible conflicting futures in favor of a single agreed upon or given future outcome. 
The problem is, reality with all its immeasurable variables can rarely be encapsulated into one well defined senario. Any one single plan will naturally be wanting.  Secondarily, as job expertise and experience among manager is almost always grounded in their perspective fields of knowledge; finance, engineering, sales production and marketing, there is little commonly held assumptions that can be used as an unbiased measure of competing business problems and suggested solutions. 
  By and large, the biggest stumbling block for marketers is the failure to clearly define the brand attributes and objective goals as a group.  Failure to determine what their brand's truly unique selling proposition is to the market they serve in particular the difficult to copy intrinsic and extrinsic qualities that make your brand special drives managers to default to tried and tested tactical action lists. 
The danger of this group think tactical planning is that it fails to encompass the potential future gains and to navigate the pitfalls that strategic examination of multiple outcomes could provide.
One of the best solutions is to apply game theory to strategic marketing planning where outcomes could be scored for how many unique permutations the team could develop for a change in one or more internal or external variables.  Simply put if we changed our warranty policy what are all the possible outcomes that could result.  In this way, strategic advantages can be uncovered and a follow on plan or tactics will naturally unfold.  So if you really want to make the most of your marketing planning always put strategic considerations before tactical action plans.

You Need Me!

As traditional marketing would have us believe, our jobs as marketers among other priorities is to persuade our target markets that they need our product, service, or insight to succeed.  Sadly, this model has been exploded by the reality of two way communication that is the new reality of our ever wired world.  The simple fact is customers are not listening, at least not to the standard pitch of features and benefits.  Prospects are more evolved in their likes and dislikes and at the same time  more suspicious of messaging and product and service delivery in general. 
Given the new market space we find ourselves in today as B2B Marketers we need to leverage technology to both transmit and receive timely feedback with regards the type, detail and frequency of the messaging we provide our markets.  I think we would all agree that usable, relevant content is king, but we need to be sensitive to how and when this information is provided to truly make our offering something customer really want and need.

Your Not the Boss of Me!

Your Not the Boss of Me !

Have you ever sat in a meeting or job interview and thought to yourself this isn't where I want to be, in fact even if I get this job, sale or promotion its not what I really want.  Well if that's true why where you trying so hard to get that job , slae or position?
I  most cases the answer is simple, you thought that by doing this you could possibly reach a better situation, and then hopefully be richer or freer to pursue what you really wanted.  But why don't we just go after what we really want in the first place? Again, either fear or ignorance of the final destination that our present direction will lead us makes us unwittingly waste days, weeks or even years seeking things that we know deep down won't make us happy or forfilled.
Perhaps, your hearts desire requires making less money, difficult study and or personal sacrifice, but if you knew for a certainty that you couldn't fail what would you try?
No one on their death bed ever wished their life had been duller, shorter or more predictable.
We default to these life-wasting options on an almost cruel belief that this is the only way, the safest way or the practically accepted way to live.
Without struggle or risk how can there be any growth or glory!  We need to search our hearts and our minds for what will truly make us come alive, no matter what others may think or feel about our choice.  Then we need to be brutally honest with ourselves about what we are willing to do within the boundaries of law and ethics to achieve our goal/s.
We need to imagine the achievement as a present fact and visualize our struggles as recollection of in the future, much like badges of honor that were won in Battles remembered.  Our creative selves will begin to construct a compelling Vision which when consistently focused on can't help but to manifest its power in our daily actions, this direction will result in its final realization.  We need to embrace it nurture it and compel it to tell our old ways  of actions thoughts and doubts that they are not ,'the boss of me'! 

Maximize your influence through circles of Excellence

When Mr. Royce an experienced engineer purchased his first car at the beginning of the last century I am sure he was happy with his decision.  Until he discovered several technical corners that had been cut in the head long industrial push to reduce costs and indirectly reduce product longevity.  As a result he set out to build his own car, applying only one main criterion, that his cars would use the best quality materials that could be used and with the best quality craftsmanship available.  The joining with Mr. Rolls the money and sales power of the company and a legend was born.  Or was it? 
Rather, the legend grew  through clear demonstrations of its quality, such as an endurance run of over 1500 miles, unheard of in 1908.  The word of mouth among the right target audiences, the circle which could afford, and appreciate the higher standards of workmanship was key.
Many efforts within modern social media campaigns are to generate interest and excitement amongst a set audience or segment.  The key point that seems to be missed is the need to raise the quality and service provided to meet the market at a point well above the accepted norm, thus drawing the attention of the smaller but generally more influential early adopters to experience the added benefits of your superior offering.  Many have been lulled into a sense of false confidence by the increased attention, traffic and buzz created via many new media channels, yet the facts remain that on the whole a well thought out, designed and supported product will gain favour, interest and ultimately gain in market share.
The core to this improvement in my opinion is the recognition of value not just for the consumer but the wider circles of influencers and seek to fill both their intrinsic and extrinsic needs.  For example the i pod generation is as much a statement of style as it is about enjoying music on the go.  The Rolls Royce continues its ascendancy through continued excellence of material quality while appealing to the greater circle of influence factors for its elite segment, mainly a understated performance combined with clear show of old world wealth and refinement.