After the latest Raleigh New Media Leaders networking event at the Hive, we recently held the door-prize lunch at the Busy Bee Cafe in Raleigh. Three lucky winners got to spend 90 minutes with three smart C-level marketing leaders — Gregory Ng, Heather Hesketh, and Jim Tobin.

Thanks again to Woody Lockwood for graciously donating event space at the Hive and donating “Lunch with the Leaders” at the Busy Bee.

Wondering what we discussed over crispy tater tots — or how to snag your own seat at the table next time? Read on!

Who Was There?

The all-volunteer organizing committee created “Lunch with the Leaders” as a unique door prize for the first Media Leaders event in January 2010. After all, what’s more valuable than getting 90 minutes of one-on-one time with busy marketing execs like Greg, Heather, and Jim?

Past leaders for Media Leaders events in Raleigh have included Brooks Bell, Karen Albritton, Michael Hubbard, and Patty Brigulio, among others.

Featured Media Leaders for January 2012:

• Gregory Ng (Chief Experience Officer, Brooks Bell)
• Heather Hesketh (CEO, hesketh.com)
• Jim Tobin (President, Ignite Social Media)

Prize-Winners at “Lunch with the Leaders” for January 2012:

• Antoinette Russell (PR Director, Wrightway International)
• Mark Fulton (Founder & Editor, DotSauce Magazine)
• Regina Twine (Former Director of Customer Engagement & Social Media, Live Work Play)

And Rachel Healy and I were there from the organizing committee to document everything.

Want to follow everyone on Twitter? Here you go: @AntoinetteR, @DotSauce, @GregoryNg, @Hesketh, @JTobin, @KarlSakas, @Rachealy, and @ReginaTwine.

Three Key Themes from “Lunch with the Leaders” at the Busy Bee

We started talking about marketing conferences — Heather is a member of the South by Southwest (SxSW) advisory board, and Regina shared her experiences attending SxSW last year.

1) How to Get the Most Out of Conferences

What can you do to get the most of conferences? Remember this:

• Everyone agreed: Never turn down an invitation — be open! You never know what’ll come out of a meeting or new connection.
• Greg noted that his connections at things like SxSW Interactive were non-traditional in ROI, but always valuable nonetheless.
• Heather: Any knowledge you gain is not from the conference — it’s in the bar. It’s about those informal connections.
• Regina: It’s about going and being open, not about having an agenda.
• Greg: If you’re looking for a data-specific conference, go to eMetrics in New York and San Francisco.

As we were discussing conferences’ mobile apps, Greg shared Phil Buckley‘s comment about boosting QR code adoption — If only they changed smartphone cameras to automatically read QR codes.

Greg recently tested a new type of QR code, to see what encouraged people to download his Freezer Burns app (among his 200,000 subscribers). People didn’t want bonus footage — but they definitely wanted free giveaways.

2) Five Years from Now — Predictions for 2017

I asked what people saw happening in the industry five years from now. A big theme was the tension between working virtually and the continuing need for valuable face-to-face time:

• Heather: Mobile workforce. You can work anywhere.
• Jim: Look at the new Microsoft Office 365 as a preview of how we’ll work in the future. Seamless, incredible. Built-in conversation, right there in the program, and it just works.
• San Jose has co-working space for people in San Francisco — 100 people in the same space, but working for different companies.
• Regina: Co-working will grow, because management will be less about keeping tabs and more about outcomes.
• Greg shared that Brooks Bell has a policy — see coworkers face-to-face every 48 hours.
• Heather: To test integrating a remote employee, we tried having a computer with video, live-streaming to a desk in the office (and occasionally tempted the remote employee with donuts in the office). The goal was to eliminate that hurdle, where people don’t want to disturb an employee working remotely. But remember, they’re at work – of course you can “disturb” them.
• As an employee at hesketh.com, I mentioned that holding daily huddles (about 15 minutes long) helps keep people moving in the same direction on the same team.
• Greg shared a theme from TIMA‘s recent futurist event: Privacy will be very different in five years. Big Brother won’t feel so scary any more — in part, because advertisers will be providing relevant messaging.
• Jim: There’s already this idea of “frictionless sharing.” Bad wording, but a good idea.
• Mark: We’ll see growth in domains. New extensions, and people investing in new extensions.
• At least one lunch attendee has pre-emptively bought domain names in their kids’ (or future kids’) names.

It seems clear that we still need to find a solution for still needing face-to-face interaction in an increasingly virtual work world.

To illustrate a potential solution, Greg shared a challenge common to the homeschooling movement — kids learn quickly, but they don’t develop the same social connections as in high school, and they struggle their first year in college. One solution includes forming learning co-ops, where homeschooled kids meet up to go on field trips, play sports, and otherwise spend “IRL” time face-to-face with other students.

3) Content Marketing: Ups and Downs

As we talked about privacy, the conversation took a turn toward content marketing — the good, the bad, and the ugly:

• Jim: Ignite Social Media’s growth has been through blogging, not advertising. For instance, they’ll release a video on their social media strategy — they’re producing them to appeal to the ideal “I’ve got money; I need some help” crowd, not the “I want to do it myself” category. Ignite also created valuable free social media tools, which led to perhaps 7.5 million of their 8.0 million inbound links.
• Heather: Content farms and bad SEO are “ruining my internet”; it’s like people are “peeing in the pool.” The focus on Optimization over Quality isn’t good.
• Greg: Brooks Bell will publish super-technical articles. They pre-qualify people, since the articles won’t appeal to less-technical people who aren’t BBI’s target market.

How To Get a Seat at the Next “Lunch with the Leaders”

Thanks again to Greg, Heather, and Jim for donating their time! And thanks to the Raleigh New Media Leaders organizing committee — Brian McDonald, Meg Crawford, Karl Sakas, Phil Buckley, and Rachel Healy — for making the latest events possible.

Want your own chance to win “Lunch with the Leaders”? You’ll need to come to the next Raleigh New Media Leaders networking event — keep an eye on our New Media Leaders website for dates and times.

What’s been your favorite networking connection or lesson-learned from New Media Leaders in Raleigh?

Signing a lease... aka an annual retainer.

I’m always looking for ideas on how to provide better client service at my marketing agency, no matter the source — like a continuing ed workshop in Raleigh by the editor of MrLandlord.com. Jeffrey Taylor helps property managers improve their apartment rental businesses, but his client-relations advice easily applies to doing account services at your marketing agency.

Why Great Tenants are Like Marketing Agency Clients

If you think about it, apartment tenants are like an agency’s retainer clients, and lease agreements are a lot like marketing retainers — we provide a certain level of service for a monthly price. And our goal is to keep them as a happy client for as long as possible, to help them get results and to maximize Lifetime Customer Value (LCV).

Jeffrey Taylor’s TREIA workshop was called ”How to Fill Any Vacancy in 72 Hours for Top Market Rent, in a Competitive Market.” Which — speaking of marketing — is an irresistible title for his target market. He’s given over 1,000 presentations, and it showed. He had great content, with a ton of audience interaction — and there wasn’t a single PowerPoint slide.

Top 10 MrLandlord.com Tips, for Apartments… or Client Service

With an eye for always improving my client service skills, I identified 10 top tips that I can apply at work:

1. Whenever possible, make residents feel like a winner.

Mr. Landlord doesn’t even call them tenants — he uses “residents” throughout all communications. “Tenant” is adversarial and lowest-common-denominator. “Resident” shows respect… and helps him demand better behavior.

• My client service takeaway: How can you make your clients feel like a winner?

2. Give residents a move-in gift.

He has a move-in gift basket for new residents. It’s sitting there on the counter when he shows an apartment. People ask, “Is that for me?” He replies, “If you apply and are approved, yes, that’s yours.”

He stocks up on the “gift baskets” at Wal-Mart, where they’re actually sold as “toiletry baskets” — after they’re marked down from $20.00 to $6.00 after Christmas. He includes a toilet plunger in the middle, with a pink ribbon.

• My client service takeaway: What do you do to welcome new clients to your agency? And what’s your marketing plunger, to avoid those midnight “my toilet’s overflowing again!” phone calls?

3. Give residents an anniversary gift.

To reward tenants — and entice them to renew — Mr. Landlord offers current residents an annual bonus. It’s always related to improving the property, to show his priorities (e.g., a ceiling fan in the bedroom, new paint in any room, carpet cleaning, a day of maid service, etc.).

And he always gives people a choice — it makes them happier to have the choice.

• My client service takeaway: How do you keep clients coming back?

4. Show rental units to 2-3 prospects at once.

Jeffrey Taylor never gives tours to one prospect at a time. Prospective residents spend more time looking at each other than the unit itself. He’s even gotten higher bids from people, trying to lock in the place first.

• My client service takeaway: Is there anything you can do to communicate scarcity, like how you aren’t taking new clients for X weeks or until Y date? Think about that, the next time you’re in an agency cattle call.

5. Build a “preferred waiting list” made of people referred by current and former residents.

By now, he can fill most of his vacancies from this network of people. Apart from offering a $50 moveout bonus (to current residents if he can rent the apartment before they move out), he doesn’t have to pay any referral fees or commissions.

And he gets results — most vacancies are filled within 72 hours of the prior resident leaving, because he has a pipeline of eager future residents. His current residents have the incentive to cooperate to get someone new in ASAP. And since the unit’s rarely unoccupied, he’s always getting paid.

• My client service takeaway: Do you have a program to actively solicit, manage, and reward referrals?

6. Have written procedures on every aspect of running your business.

For instance, when he receives notice that someone’s leaving, he has a checklist of what he needs to do next. He doesn’t reinvent the wheel every time it happens. It also makes it easier to delegate to others when it’s documented.

• My client service takeaway: If you don’t want to do everything yourself, you need to be able to tell someone else what you need — whether it’s an employee or a service provider.

7. Require residents to move out by 11am.

That’s “checkout time” on the lease. The “check-in time” is 3pm the next day. This gap gives him 27-28 hours to do any final cleaning or prep before the new person moves in. By setting this expectation up front (and reminding them when they give notice), he no longer has people moving out at midnight.

• My client service takeaway: Do you have and enforce minimum expectations for getting your deposit and signed contract before scheduling the kickoff meeting? They’re not a client until they’ve paid you money.

8. If you give residents a program to follow, they will follow it.

People will often do what you ask, especially if you give them an incentive to do what you want them to do. Even his evictees get the guaranteed $50 move-out bonus, if he fills the vacancy before they leave. Because of how he treats people, evictees don’t trash the place — which reduces his expenses and increase his profits.

• My client service takeaway: Do your clients know what to expect from you, and what you expect from them? At Coalmarch, I created a Client Bill of Rights to make it obvious.

9. Don’t ask residents “Do you want to renew?”

He realized that when he asked people if they wanted to renew their lease, many of them chose not to renew. Now, he sends a different letter: “Thanks for being one of our great residents. We look forward to serving you for another two years. Please initial your choice of anniversary gift and sign your lease extension, and return to our office.” He joked, “I don’t ask my wife to ‘renew’ each year. I just ask her which anniversary gift she wants.”

• My client service takeaway: I wouldn’t hide that they’re renewing their retainer, but can you improve how you handle renewals or what you do as you’re wrapping up a one-time project?

10. On the rental application, ask how long prospects plan to stay.

His intake form has three choices: 2 years, 5 years, 10 years. It’s about setting expectations. And if someone says, “Oh, well, I only want to stay for one year,” he finds a (legal) reason to reject them in favor of a longer-term prospect.

• My client service takeaway: Are you asking the right questions in your client pre-qualification process?

Applying These Concepts to Your Marketing Agency Today

How might you translate these ideas to your agency client service work? Amidst my day-to-day work, I need to do a better job of actively asking for long-term referrals. I’m a big fan of documenting procedures to avoid reinventing the wheel each time, and I’ve already started setting clearer expectations with clients.

Business is all about continuous improvement. What’s your favorite tip for improving your client service?

Do you want to create better websites and mobile apps for your marketing agency clients or your company’s customers, but you’re afraid that doing usability testing is too expensive or too complicated? Fortunately, you might be wrong!

Usability Testing Might be Easier and Cheaper Than You Think

UX expert Abe Crystal shared “Myths and Misconceptions of Usability Testing” at last night’s Triangle Usability Professionals Association (TriUPA) meeting.

From my perspective helping clients at an interactive marketing agency in Raleigh, these were my five favorite tips:

Where You Can Go to Learn More About Usability Testing

Hat-tip to audience member Tony Poillucci for suggesting Silverback, a cheap tool you can use to record a user doing tasks on your webcam-enabled MacBook or iMac, including screen captures plus video of the user’s reactions. Very useful, and only $70.

Want more tips and other actionable ideas? I previously wrote a recap of Abe’s TIMA presentation last year. And Abe and his colleagues are teaching another UX 101 workshop in North Carolina this fall — you can sign up now at the MoreBetterLabs website.

What’s your top tip for creating more-effective websites?

Some of the best events are those without an agenda. That was true about the fifth Raleigh Media Leaders networking event at recently-opened Spy Raleigh nightclub on July 12, and it was true about the post-event Prize Lunch at the brand new Joel Lane’s Public House restaurant on August 3, 2011. Mark your calendar now for November 8.

A Different Kind of Event. A Different Kind of Door Prize.

Delicious grilled cheese (with bacon!) and crispy tater tots (with cheese fondue dipping sauce!)

As Phil Buckley has shared before, Raleigh Media Leaders is an atypical networking event — without speakers, without sponsor tables, and without traditional door prizes. Our only agenda is to bring together people from marketing, media, public relations, and related fields — meeting new people and re-connecting with old friends. As I’ve shared before, it’s indirectly how I got my job at Coalmarch. We had 177 people pre-register this time, plus a number of walkups.

Our unique ‘door prize’ is that three randomly-selected attendees get to “do lunch” with three leaders in marketing and media. The idea is that they’ll have an opportunity to connect up-close-and-personal with local marketing and media leaders they might not normally have easy access to under regular circumstances. Leaders from the past events’ lunches have included Karen Albritton of Capstrat, Brooks Bell of Brooks Bell Interactive, Michael Hubbard of Media Two Interactive, and Jesse Lipson of ShareFile.

This event’s prize winners were Barbara Maloney, Ellen Lynch, and Jenna Gengler. The three lunch “prizes” were Jeff Tippett of Calvert Creative,  John Lane of Centerline Digital, and Mike Williams of the News & Observer‘s Triangle.com. Phil was there to moderate and I was there to document everything.

Secret Surprise Lunch: Sneak Preview at Joel Lane’s Public House

Joel Lane's Public House in Raleigh, NC -- our sneak preview lunch location

To keep things exciting, we didn’t tell the lunch participants where they’d be going for lunch, other than that it was going to be a surprise, and that we’d provide transportation. After everyone met in front of Isaac Hunter’s on Fayetteville Street, we managed to maintain the veil of secrecy until the van turned onto Glenwood Ave.

Joel Lane’s Public House generously agreed to donate lunch from a special preview menu, before the restaurant’s official opening in mid-August. The grilled cheese was delicious, and the steak sandwich looked pretty tempting. And the cheese fondue dipping sauce was perfect with the crispy tater tots. You can find the official menu at JoelLanes.com.

Lunch Topics: From Job Search Tips to the $800 New BMW

This photo (everyone looking at their smartphone) is posed, but only by a little...

Lunch topics ranged from job search tips to Raleigh’s mayoral race, and from marketing trends to how trade show exhibitors can afford to give away a $45,000 BMW (answer: they buy an $800 insurance policy against someone sinking a winning shot on the booth’s faux putting green).

I tried to think of a theme later and there really wasn’t one — that variety kept things interesting.

Attentive service, delicious food, good company, and great conversation — what’s not to like?

Thank You to Our Sponsors, Volunteers, and Organizers

Thanks to Spy Raleigh for donating use of the Media Leaders Raleigh event venue. You can find Spy Raleigh at 330 West Davie Street, Raleigh, NC 27601; 919-335-5779; and on Twitter at @SpyRaleigh.

Thanks to Zack Medford and his partners for donating lunch at Joel Lane’s Public House and for donating transportation to/from Isaac Hunter’s Oak City Tavern. You can find Joel Lane’s at 410 Glenwood Avenue, Suite 350, Raleigh, NC 27603; 919-386-9935; and @JoelLanes. Don’t like parallel parking on Glenwood South? There’s a parking lot!

Thanks to Jeff Tippett, John Lane, and Mike Williams for sharing their time and their expertise. And thanks again to my fellow members of the organizing committee — Brian McDonald, Meg Crawford, Phil Buckley, and Rachel Healy — for holding another successful Raleigh Media Leaders event.

Mark Your Calendar Now for November 8, 2011

Want to come to the next new and improved media leader networking event in Raleigh? Sign up now for Tuesday, November 8 (also Election Day) from 7pm to 10pm, and follow @1918 on Twitter. You can’t miss it.

Who’d you like to see as a lunch “prize” for the next event?

Image credits: Karl Sakas

Want to create a winning marketing campaign for your non-profit? You can learn a lot from McKinney’s ad agency pro bono success in launching PlaySpent.org for Urban Ministries of Durham.

The PlaySpent.org online game raises awareness of people who are a paycheck away from being homeless — you have to survive for a month with $1,000 in the bank, while making 30 difficult decisions. The pro bono marketing campaign has gotten 900K views from over 500K people in 200+ countries, while also garnering media coverage for the client on CNN and other venues. And it’s led to similar work for McKinney with other clients.

At this month’s Triangle Interactive Marketing Association (TIMA) event in Durham, NC, copywriter Jenny Nicholson (@missjenny) and interactive producer Carmen Bocanegra (@carmenboca) gave a great presentation about the project.

Jenny and Carmen shared 11 tips on making your own non-profit marketing campaign a success:

1. Make it personal. Playing Spent requires people to make difficult decisions, ones that almost anyone can identify with (for instance, your child wants to play sports… do you pay for the uniform or say no?). And McKinney intentionally didn’t set up a “PlaySpent” Twitter account — sharing had to be personal, rather than corporate.
2. Make sharing matter. For instance, if you get stuck in the game and don’t have money, you can ask a friend for help. This posts your  in-game request to your Facebook account (e.g., “My washing machine broke… can someone let me use theirs?”), which takes the experience beyond the game website.
3. Be brave. Don’t use the committee approach. This leads to soul-less work.
4. There are no borders. McKinney started by focusing on local needs, but the website makes it a global thing. And the issue — surviving on limited resources — has global appeal. The game has been played by people in 213 countries, and Urban Ministries of Durham has gotten donations from across the country.
5. Know who’s talking. Listen to the conversation about your campaign, and respond appropriately. For instance, an NPR personality tweeted the game. McKinney followed up about getting additional publicity. Also, they found people tended to use Facebook more than Twitter. This can vary, depending on your audience.
6. Embrace feedback. McKinney and UMD set up an email address for viewer feedback. Two weeks after launching the game, they made several changes, which improved the game.
7. Be ready to respond. McKinney made the game easy to update. This made it easy to update the game as they received feedback along the way. Loyal brands respond to people. Also, McKinney had a PR plan from the start, which did evolve over time.
8. Set expectations. The original goal was to raise awareness of UMD’s mission, including the large hidden swath of people who are a paycheck away from homeless. That is, raising money was a secondary goal. Stop adding more metrics.
9. Ask for what you want. Originally, the end of the game had three buttons (Donate, Get Involved, and Play Again), all the same size. But they realized that people who play the game are ready to act — they spend an average of 10 minutes on the site. They revised the buttons to highlight a “Donate $5″ option, and spelled out that $5 bought two meals. Making it obvious and making it concrete led donations to skyrocket. McKinney mentioned they wish they’d done this from the beginning.
10. Visit PlaySpent.org. McKinney spent 1,000+ hours on building the game, all on a pro bono basis. UMD gave them nearly full creative control. I’ve played the game several times — it’s engaging and thought-provoking.
11. BONUS: If an agency is doing pro bono work for you, trust them. This gets the best results. As long as the agency knows your business goals (e.g., raise awareness of UMD’s mission, while preserving the dignity of those who are homeless), let them run with it. Jenny mentioned having full freedom meant people were willing to work all night on the project. That doesn’t happen when things are highly restricted.

What’s your top non-profit marketing lesson from McKinney and PlaySpent.org?

I’m always looking for new ideas to improve my marketing agency. This week’s AIGA Raleigh event on the business of design and marketing (“The Principals’ Principles“) was invaluable. Chapter president and New Kind partner Matt Muñoz moderated a panel of five Triangle marketing agency owners with nearly 100 years of combined experience:

Thanks to Matt Muñoz, Woody Holliman, Jamie Lee, Amy Lyons, and the rest of the AIGA Raleigh team for organizing a great event!

After recently hiring several team members at Coalmarch — and usually rejecting applicants who asked how many employees we have (considering it’s in the job posting and right there on the website) — I especially liked the panel’s answers to my question about recruiting the right people.

What stands out to you as the most important piece of advice about the business of design and marketing?

Think your marketing job is hard? Imagine if you were in charge of marketing at a utility company whose customers are forced to do business with you, a medical software provider whose users hate the insurance companies that pay the bills, or a non-profit that hasn’t done product development in 127 years?

Triangle AMA recruited a great lineup of Chief Marketing Officers and other top marketing executives for its annual CMO Panel last week in Raleigh, NC. Panelists included:

• Moderator Todd Barr of Alfresco Software (an open-source CMS provider with 1,100 enterprise customers)
• Stephen Chiles of ShareFile (a file-sharing provider with 2 million users in 120 countries)
• Lisa Gonzalez of the American Kennel Club (a non-profit representing purebred dog owners since 1884)
• Kimberly Labow of NaviNet (a healthcare communication provider that links 30 health plans to 950,000 physicians)
• MaryLynn Peek of Progress Energy (a utility serving 3 million customers in 3 states)

We had plenty of time for Q&A, including my question about how marketing agencies can better serve them as clients. Couldn’t spare the time or the money to go? Here’s my recap of the marketing lunch-and-learn event in Raleigh, NC.

Top Marketing Trends: Lead-Gen, Analytics, and More

The biggest theme was the challenge of lead-gen in a shifting marketplace. Beyond lead-generation, other common themes included analytics, segmentation, mobile marketing, new business models, and finding employees and contractors who just “get it.”

These were my favorite key points from each panelist:

1. Todd Barr: Regarding how marketing agencies can serve him better: “I’d pick a great account executive over great creative every time.” He assumes good creative will come, but not every agency can provide good client service.
2. Stephen Chiles: There’s a disconnect when it comes to paid search marketing — he’ll get an agency’s best PPC person until the person gets promoted, and then he’s stuck with a mediocre PPC rep. This leads to mistakes and lost opportunities.
3. Lisa Gonzalez: The AKC has been around for 127 years, but this is the first time they’ve really focused on marketing. The non-profit “hasn’t done product development since 1884!”
4. Kimberly Labow: NaviNet sells its service to 30 health insurance companies, who then provide NaviNet as a free service to 950,000 physicians. The problem is, health plans and physicians hate each other. It’s a zero sum game.
5. MaryLynn Peek: When your customers have no choice but to buy from you, marketing is about earning their trust, and later selling them add-ons.

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Karl’s Marketing Discussion, Analysis, and Comments

Looking for a new job? Lisa at AKC is switching from contractors to hiring full-time marketers. And if you’re a senior database/CRM director, Kimberly said NaviNet is hiring someone to help segment their 950,000 physicians for lead-gen outreach.

I liked the panel’s variety — kudos to Triangle AMA for recruiting everyone. I’m surprised how many people had moved to the Triangle to avoid cold northern weather… then again, after five years in New Jersey, I can understand that.

Todd made a great point about the value of software developers — they help him get things done faster as a marketer. I’ve seen that at Coalmarch — our developers can quickly produce code that converts data into actionable information, for me or our clients.

NaviNet is attempting to create a new market category called Unified Patient Information Management (UPIM), which seems to be a mashup of electronic medical records and more. Kimberly made a great point about being the leader in defining new markets — she said, “someday, we hope our competitors will say, ‘Yes, we do UPIM, too.’” More generally, I was surprised to hear NaviNet’s fax marketing campaigns get 20-25% response rates.

Brier Creek Country Club is getting passive-aggressive about parking — there were “no on-street parking” and “member parking only” signs everywhere. Unfortunately, their visitor parking lot is too small to accommodate a full ballroom, much less their regular patrons. But that’s their problem, not ours. Considering TriAMA probably pays them $30K+ annually, I think we should expect better than whiny customer service, no?

Want more details about what each CMO shared with the Triangle chapter of the American Marketing Association? Read on!

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CMO Panel 2011: Detailed Notes from the Triangle AMA Event

Todd Barr from Alfresco Software (@tbarr)

• Background
  • Company: They’re an open-source enterprise content management system (CMS) provider. For marketing, he focuses on growing net new customers.
  • Todd: Previously at Red Hat and Bandwidth. MBA from UNC.
• My question: What can agencies do to serve you better?
  • “I’d pick a great account executive over great creative every time.” He said he assumes great creative comes standard, but that client service isn’t automatic.
• What certification or training does he look for from team members?
  • Wants talent in three areas: Analytics (understand data), Design (or at least think like designers do), and Development (the mindset… developers help him get things done faster)
• Audience question: What are your top methods of lead-gen?
  • After saying he’d never do it, they’re ramping up tradeshows. But he won’t sponsor unless he gets access to the attendee list. That followup marketing works decently well.
• Question: What does he forecast to be the next cutting-edge marketing tool?
  • Mobile, especially to deliver video.

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Stephen Chiles from ShareFile (@ShareFileSteve)

• Background
  • Company: ShareFile is the 8^th fastest-growing software company, with 14,000 corporate customers and 2 million users in 120 countries.
  • Stephen: Previously, he did UX for AOL 3-7, and the UX for AIM 1.0 Headed marketing at Insurance.com, as cost-per-click went from $15 to $60 in six months. Graduate work at MIT.
• Current focus in marketing?
  • At ShareFile, seeking to reduce dependence on paid search, and seeking to expand horizontally.
• Question: Are you focusing on lead-gen or awareness advertising?
  • In ShareFile’s lifecycle, they’ve been busy focusing on proving the business model. They’re still committed to remaining a bootstrapped organization. “Now, we’re becoming more extroverted.”
  • They’ve seen 100% growth in the SEO channel this past year. Next, have a great content strategy.
  • They did their first-ever PR campaign, regarding a new launch. Site traffic was +200% day-over-day, +400% month-over-month, and +1,000% year-over-year. They want to get into buyers’ consideration set.
• Question: What’s their biggest marketing investment this year?
  • Better predictive analytics and segmentation. They hired a graduate from NC State’s analytics masters program. Very data-driven business.
• My question: What can agencies do to serve you better?
  • Honesty. Don’t say “Yes” to everything. He appreciates candor; he wants to see the agency as an extension of his business.
  • Be clear about what you can and can’t do.
  • When he was on the agency side, Martha Stewart Omnimedia hired his agency to do social media. This was just six months after Facebook started. He explained they’d be a partner and they’d learn together. And seven years later, MSO is still a client for the agency.
• Question: Does he look for Google certification, for people or agencies that do SEO/SEM for him?
  • No. He’s more concerned about the depth of the bench, and employee churn.
  • In PPC, there’s a premium for great talent. There’s lots of mediocrity in day to day tactics. He wants to ensure he has access to multiple people.
  • The problem? Good PPC people leave or get promoted… so his new PPC account executive has, literally, 3 months of experience. This has led to costly mistakes and missed opportunities.
• Question: What does he forecast to be the next cutting-edge marketing tool?
  • Mobile. But it’ll be interesting to see how consumer behavior evolves, especially with tablet adoption.
  • Adoption rates for PCs, mobile phones, and tablets have each grown faster than the last. Some analysts predict 75% tablet adoption by 2014.

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Lisa Gonzalez from the American Kennel Club

• Background
  • Company: The AKC has been around since 1884. She’s the first marketing head since the organization started.
  • Lisa: Experience in consumer products and healthcare. MBA from UNC.
• Question: Are you focusing on lead-gen or awareness advertising?
  • It’s definitely about target audiences. For instance, they have several subsegments: Breeders, Clubs, and Dog Owners.
  • Her goal is to gain awareness, and then change behaviors. Need to make customers aware of all the things AKC already does! Their surveys show very low awareness.
• Question: What’s their biggest marketing investment this year?
  • Infrastructure. Previously, there was no marketing. It’s been eye-opening.
  • Strategic Triangle: Strategy, Culture, and Structure.
  • She’s been using marketing contractors, but she’s now hiring people.
• Audience question: What’s the value of dog registration?
  • AKC has been around since 1884. When it started, people used horses and buggies. The organization hasn’t done product development since 1884.
• Question: What certification or training does she look for from team members?
  • She wants people who can lead, think, and make things happen.
  • Lately, there’s been a push for people who understand social media and the web, the “bright shiny ball” on customer interaction.
• Audience question: What are your top methods of lead-gen?
  • Some of their segments have their own professional associations (for instance, professional breeders have one). So they connect with their associations, and with distributors (e.g., pet stores).
• Question: What does she forecast to be the next cutting-edge marketing tool?
  • Agrees about mobile.
  • But… even with mobile and social media, it still comes back to the 4P’s marketing mix. Strategy comes first.

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Kimberly Labow from NaviNet

• Background
  • Company: Connect health plans to physicians.
    • Very complicated business model: they sell the service to 30 health plans, which then provide the service for free to 950,000 physician users… but both sides hate each other.
    • Reimbursement is a zero sum game, and that extends to doctors’ and insurers’ other relationships.
    • NaviNet is in the middle, bridging the relationship with services. They cover 120 million patients.
  • Kimberly: Knew she wanted to do marketing since her junior year of high school, so it’s always been clear to her. Eventually realized she likes messaging and positioning, instead of product marketing or communications marketing. MBA from Northeastern.
• Changing business models at NaviNet
  • Shifting course: Now, selling directly to doctors (who were previously just 3% of the business.
  • Needs to build her lead pipeline on the clinical side.
• Question: Are you focusing on lead-gen or awareness advertising?
  • They’re trying to do a lot at once. They’re creating a new market space, Unified Patient Information Management (UPIM). They’ve been spending time on analyst relations, with Gartner and others.
  • She hopes that someday, their competitors will say, “Yes, we do UPIM, too.”
• Challenge, in selling to physicians
  • They’ve been providing EMB; now they’re providing EMR.
  • The issue is they know exactly where the health plans are (there are only so many) but there are tons of physicians.
  • Problem: They’re dis-intermediated by existing practice management systems.
• Question: What’s their biggest marketing investment this year?
  • Seeking a Senior Database Director, to help them understand and segment the 900K users.
• My question: What can agencies do to serve you better?
  • “Ditto” (to Todd’s response, “I’d pick a great account executive over great creative every time.”)
• Question: What certification or training does she look for from team members?
  • It’s a struggle to find people who understand talking to different people at different times in the sales cycle (e.g., buyers vs. champions, etc.).
  • She wants people who understand messaging throughout the sales cycle.
  • She can teach people the industry, if they understand the fundamentals.
• Audience question: What are your top methods of lead-gen?
  • Fax, surprisingly — “healthcare is firmly, comfortably in 1973.” She left healthcare and came back 7-8 years later, and it was like she was never away. But for her, fax works — fax campaigns get her a 20-25% response rate.
  • She also works on email, and on building influencer partnerships.
• Question: What does she forecast to be the next cutting-edge marketing tool?
  • Mobile.

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MaryLynn Peek from Progress Energy

• Background
  • Company: Progress has 3 million customers in NC, SC, and Florida, with primarily a “captive” customer base (as a government-regulated monopoly).
  • MaryLynn: She’s sitting in for communications VP Cari Boyce. MaryLynn has been at Progress Energy for 10 years.
• Key premise
  • When you have a captive customer base (most of their customers, apart from some non-regulated services), marketing is about gaining their trust, and then attempting to sell customers additional services.
• Question: What’s their biggest marketing investment this year?
  • Completing a new web redesign; this is a major investment.
  • The goal is to need fewer customer service representatives (CSRs), by making the website more customer-centric, with more personalized messages.
• Audience question: How does the upcoming Duke/Progress merger affect their marketing?
  • It’s about being open and honest at various stages.
• Question: What certification or training does she look for from team members?
  • She wants flexibility and mobile experience.
  • Recently hired an analytics person and a copywriter experienced in short-piece copywriting.
• Question: What does she forecast to be the next cutting-edge marketing tool?
  • Mobile.

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Conclusion

It’s hard for marketers to reach customers and prospects, and it’s getting harder. What were your biggest takeaways from the Triangle AMA’s 2011 CMO panel?

Photo credits: Karl Sakas

Marketing conversion optimization expert Brooks Bell demystified A/B split testing for marketers last week and shared why split testing is valuable. The president of conversion optimization agency Brooks Bell Interactive spoke to TIMA members and guests at Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh, NC. Thanks to Arik Abel for the photos.

The Five T’s of Testing

Brooks Bell at TIMA

The focus of Brooks’ presentation was her Five T’s of Testing framework (right):

1. Traffic (you need enough “success” actions to have statistical significance)
2. Technology (your tests must be random and concurrent)
3. Time (it takes longer than you expect, and it’s a continuous process)
4. Trust (you have to trust that the data is accurate)
5. Team (you need a multi-disciplinary team of marketers, designers, and technologists)

Why Is Split Testing Valuable for Marketers?

Brooks shared how she optimized the Washington Post‘s website signup process, which I recognized as a WashingtonPost.com member. It was fascinating to see the work that went on behind the scenes to deliver the effective conversion pages.

The general idea is that if you’re always testing against a control, your conversion rate will always be improving. That makes sense. But it’s clearly a complicated process.

But…

Technology and team challenges aside, the big challenge for smaller companies (that is, non-Fortune 500 firms) is having enough meaningful website traffic to achieve statistical significance. And for testing, you have to count ”successes” — like email signups or info requests —  instead of raw traffic.

For instance, Coalmarch is helping one of our clients get more info requests via their contact form. Overall website traffic aside, the small business is getting just three requests a week. We’re going to help them increase that, but even when that quadruples, it’d take two years to get the 200-300 actions (100-150 “successes” per cell, for a single A/B test) that Brooks mentions you need for statistical significance.

Ultimately, we’ll help the client get results, but we can’t attribute the improvement to a specific “recipe” of changes.

Easy Ways to Get Started

If you’re ready to add testing to your marketing department, Brooks mentioned several easy areas to get started:

• Email subject lines
• Offer emails
• PPC landing pages
• Lead form
• House ads

With a medium-sized email list or even a fairly small PPC campaign, it’s not too hard to get the hundreds of clickthrough “successes” to get meaningful results. I’ve used a rudimentary version of A/B split testing to test Facebook ads and the results are often dramatic.

Conclusion

Brooks Bell with TIMA board members

If you want to learn more about using testing in your marketing campaigns, watch Brooks’ “Testing, 1, 2, 3″ webinar from June 2010 (it’s a 40-minute recording, well worth the time).

You can also read her blog post from Conversion Conference East, which includes a copy of her “Five T’s of Testing” table.

I already knew Brooks Bell Interactive had a smart team – I enjoyed learning more about the method behind the business. See you at the next TIMA meeting!

Photo credits: Arik Abel

Scott Stratten at Triangle AMA

Marketing expert Scott Stratten of Un-Marketing.com shared valuable tips during his engaging, funny presentation at the Triangle AMA meeting last week. Kudos to Chris Moody of Bandwidth.com for recruiting Scott.

Karl’s 10 Favorite UnMarketing Tips from Scott Stratten

Scott’s big themes were authenticity, dialogue, emotions, and common decency, with a focus on social media marketing:

1. Grow your network on Twitter by chatting with others, not promoting yourself. Scott said he’s now tweeted 59,000 times — and 75% of those are @ replies. Check your own stats at TweetStats.
2. Social media isn’t hard — it’s just talking. The ideal marketing is permission-based — “pull and stay,” not “push and pray.”
3. Don’t market things the way you hate being marketed to yourself. Like cold-calling, for instance. Scott said, “I could punch everyone in the face and someone would eventually pay me to stop. That doesn’t mean it works.”
4. People do business with people they know, like, and trust. There’s a marketing and customer service angle, but social media is ultimately about building relationships. Scott said, “Every time you ask the ROI on Twitter, a kitten dies.” and “People tell me, ‘I don’t believe in Twitter.’ It’s not a religion!“
5. During your own presentations, tell the audience to turn on their phones. You should be sharing information that’s so valuable, people can’t wait to tweet it, and make everyone else jealous that they’re not there in the audience.
6. People share things that evoke emotion. Just because you say it’s a “viral video” doesn’t make it viral. People don’t spread “meh.” They spread emotional and awesome. Your business can be a commodity, but emotion isn’t. The reason we spread and share content online hasn’t changed, even if the technology has.
7. If you don’t trust an employee to do social media, that’s not a social media issue. It’s an HR issue.
8. To focus your energies, use “platforming.” Be active on a single platform and do it really well. For instance, Scott committed to Twitter in January 2009. He tweeted 7,000 times that month, growing from 1,200 to 10,000 followers. Since then, his followership has grown to 60,000 people, through retweets and other cross-pollination. If you don’t have that much time, spending 30 minutes every day is better than spending 3.5 hours one time a week.
9. If it takes you longer to reply to a tweet than to send a letter, you’re doing it wrong. Scott mentioned someone who took 89 days to reply to his message, about whether she was going to an event he was doing. Her reply, three months later? “No.”
10. All we want is be validated. Respond to people, unless they’re trolls. Ignore the trolls, or write a reply and delete it before sending. As Scott said, “My job is not to be the jackass whisperer.”

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Comments, Analysis, and Discussion

I’m sure Scott had given the talk many times already, as it was very polished, but everything seemed quite fresh. His sarcastic humor stood out and kept the audience laughing…and scribbling notes about new ideas to use back at the office.

During the Q&A, I asked Scott my “what’s an interview question you’ve never been asked” question, a la my Seth Godin interview. Scott seemed taken aback for a moment but quickly regrouped.

Greatest inscription ever!

He said that no one had asked how his book tour came together. His answer? All via Twitter, all from people contacting him and asking him to come to their city. Here in the Triangle, for instance, it was Chris Moody.

Scott’s answer made for a great illustration of his “pull and stay” approach to marketing, versus traditional “push and pray” marketing.

As an early registrant for the TriAMA lunch-and-learn, I received a copy of Scott’s book, UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. After chatting with friends, I lined up for the signing. The inscription (right) riffed off his onstage response to my interview question: “Greatest. Question. Ever.” Thanks, Scott!

I noticed just one disconnect during his presentation — when Scott described “living” on Twitter in January 2009, he said he told his assistant he’d be unavailable for a month. I wish I had an assistant to delegate to! And I’m pretty sure most of my fellow TriAMA audience members don’t have assistants, either, virtual or otherwise. But that’s a minor point.

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Conclusion

Scott signing my book

If Scott’s tips resonated with you, check out the book and follow him on Twitter at @unmarketing.

I also recommend reading Deirdre Reid’s event recap, reading Morgan Siem’s recap at MediaTwoPoint{OH!}, and watching Chris’ “5in5″ video interview with Scott. I’m looking forward to re-absorbing the presentation’s content when I read UnMarketing.

What were your biggest takeaways from Scott Stratten and UnMarketing?

Image credits: Scott Stratten photos by Brian McDonald (used with permission) and book page photo by Karl Sakas

Abe Crystal of More Better Labs

As marketers and designers, we need to get “outside the building” to ensure we’re meeting our customers’ needs, according to Dr. Abe Crystal of More Better Labs. He presented ”User Experience 101” at yesterday’s TIMA meeting.

Couldn’t make it? You missed out — it was a great session. Abe covered some theory but focused on real-world user experience (UX) examples and questions that we marketers can answer to improve our products. I’ll link to the handout and slides as soon as TIMA shares them.

Here’s my “quick highlights” recap of the event at the Marbles Children’s Museum in Raleigh, N.C. If you want even more, sign up for More Better Labs’ two-day UX101 workshop in RTP.

My Top 4 UX Lessons from Abe Crystal

1. ASK: What’s one small thing you can do THIS WEEK to get “outside the building” and reach out to a customer? Effective product design doesn’t happen entirely in a cubicle. On the handout, Abe shared a list of questions to ask your customers, via Cindy Alvarez at KISSmetrics.
2. DO: Come up with a mantra for your project, instead of a verbose mission statement. A few years ago, Guy Kawasaki rewrote hollow “corporatespeak” mission statements as simple sayings. For instance, Wendy’s would be “healthy fast food” and Nike would be “authentic athletic performance.” The three- and four-word mantras are easier for employees to internalize and execute.
3. MAKE: Sketch, mock up, or draft an “artifact from the future” for your project. Showing a hypothetical software box, Abe asked what we’d highlight if we had room for just three bullets. It reminded me of an exercise in my improv comedy class, where we had to do a scene in 40 seconds, and then 20 seconds, and then 10 seconds. When you have less time or space, you get to the point faster!
4. REVERSE-ENGINEER: Deconstruct and analyze the user experience principles of a product or service you like. Abe highlighted how Mint, Kayak, Flip, and 37signals succeeded where competitors have failed, due in part because they “get” UX.

Comments

This month’s Triangle Interactive Marketing Association‘s user experience lunch-and-learn built nicely on what I’d learned about UX from Jess Martin at Refresh the Triangle. I don’t have a personal mission statement but if I were to condense my essence into a mantra, it might be “meaningful, measurable marketing.”

I went back to the office with several ideas to help my clients immediately. I also need to think about how to make my blog simpler to navigate. And I’m going to look into Don’t Make Me Think and Designing for Interaction, which Abe recommended. The TIMA event wasn’t a sales pitch but based on Abe’s intro-intro, I’m strongly considering registering for More Better Labs’ two-day UX101 event on September 23-24.

What were your biggest takeaways? What’s your mantra?

Marketing strategist and account manager Karl Sakas uses research, insights, and relationships to help companies quickly find new ways to make more money. He’s available for hire on a full-time or consulting basis from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Photo credit: Abe Crystal via Twitter