Monday, December 7, 2015

Organizing An International Marketing Research Program
—Part 2

By Daniel J. Colquhoun
Senior Vice President, Customer Research
Frost & Sullivan

In our first installment of this two-part series, we looked in broad terms at the challenges researchers face in mounting a multi-country research project. In this final article we’ll provide an overview of the structure of a global research program.


What To Research First?

It is assumed that your local company or agent will be able to provide a briefing on the basic market structure. So concentrate on the areas that you have the least understanding of and that are most likely to be an obstacle to the strategy.
 

In many cases, the area of least understanding will be the area of customer needs. A global strategy will need to engineer a brand mix that satisfies those.
 

Usually, the international marketer at the head office has a native feel for his own country’s customers but is completely in the dark when it comes to those from abroad. Most international brands these days perform well, but their weaknesses arise when they don’t fulfill a need.

Thus, international research program planners should think about a coordinated set of exploratory surveys before buying into larger scale quantitative or market measurement surveys. In this way they are able to get a better understanding of the market before committing large financial and human resources to the collection, reporting and assimilating of large information systems.


Also, an understanding of the customer can help to eliminate a number of possible strategies from the outset, so focusing on the more practical strategies early on is recommended. Furthermore, such an approach allows the marketer to be more focused on what he puts into the quantitative research coverage. It becomes more relevant and less general.


An ideal approach would be:


Stage One    Basic Data From Secondary Sources
                   Prioritize markets due to macro or strategic features (e.g., size,
                   age, profile, income levels, and presence of competitors).

Stage Two    Qualitative Customer Motivation Research
                   Get to know the customers, highlight potential pitfalls,
                   broaden your understanding, and help to focus future
                   quantitative research.
 

Stage Three  Usage and Attitude Studies, Product Acceptability Tests,
                   Concept and Positioning

                   This will help in the selection of target markets, will expose who 
                   are seen in the customers’ mind as the competition, it will help in
                   media and retail channel selection.

Stage Four   Market Monitoring, Retail or Channel Research, Advertising,
                  Tracking, etc.


These enable strategies to be monitored and fine-tuned.
Throughout this whole process, the major problem that the marketer and his researcher will be up against is getting continuous, accurate, timely, and comparable information from the research suppliers.


If possible, it is usually better to employ one research agency to coordinate your projects across the relevant countries, rather than trying to do it yourself. The benefits of using a central agency are:

  • The regional research specialists in the agency will know what is already available in each country. They can advise on what needs to be collected from primary research and what can be bought off the shelf.
  • They can ensure regional comparability in terms of question wording, analysis and tabulation, report sequence and methods of measurement.
  • They can advise what is feasible in each market.
  • They can handle much of the coordination and follow up that is very time consuming and takes the marketer’s research staff away from the more important area of analysis and reporting internally to the marketing group.
  • If necessary, the agency’s local country staff can service your own in their country.
Global Research Agencies

Most major advertising agencies are prepared to set up and support their key clients in whatever market they enter. Research companies have not followed that trend until recently. There are several reasons.


First, the agency-client relationship is not as close between the research company and its clients as it typically is between clients and their advertising agency. Secondly, clients tend to use a large number of research agencies due to the level of specialization. In most markets, Canada, the US, Europe and Japan, research companies are relatively specialized. There are companies who do retail audits, others who do media research, others who specialize in qualitative or advertising tracking and so on.


Summary


Global, international or even regional research programs are extremely complicated to undertake and sustain. There are a great many reasons for this resulting mainly from the diversity of dealing with a large number of countries at different levels of economic and social development, let alone the essential cultural differences that exist inherently.


Furthermore, the ability of most multinational companies to assimilate the sheer amount of data that is generated from a regional, let alone a global study is at present limited in most cases (usually due to lack of staff and resources and sometimes the status of research within the organization).


The advent of powerful computer information management and analysis applications should go some way to resolving this, but in the final analysis it is the caliber of the human resource that will determine the return on the research investment.

Why Programmatic Media Advertising Matters and Should Be In Every Marketing Mix






By Francesco Federico
Global Digital Marketing Director
Acer,  Incorporated





When getting ready to run an online campaign, marketers are faced with two excruciating pains today. The first is customer journey complexity. The second is fake, non-human conversions.

Let’s start with our customers’ journey.

The reality that unfolds before our eyes is of unmanageable complexity. Consumers are hyper-mobile, always connected and move along unpredictable journeys towards their final conversion. Tracking all this is almost impossible as the combinations are so many that approaches that involve demographic segmentation, behavioural targeting and the like are not effective any more.
We need tools that can manage this complexity for us. Programmatic advertising is part of the answer as it delegates to machine algorithms the complexity of finding a target group that converts, as they can find the best match for our objectives dynamically.
 

In a nutshell, what happens is that an advanced artificial intelligence algorithm starts placing ads on different networks, targeting different groups and then adapts in real time spending more on those clusters that are converting better, while reducing if not shutting down completely the less performing clusters.
This way, we, as marketers, only need to define clear KPIs, without worrying about finding the right target as the machine will do the job for us.

Second issue: Non human conversions.

Online ads are flawed by a crazy high number of non- human impressions and clicks that alter our KPIs and reduce the effectiveness of our media spending. Again, programmatic can help us reduce this issue as the artificial intelligence behind it “learns” what a human conversion looks like, so that it can then spot suspicious conversions that do not behave as a human would and blacklist it, increasing overall campaign efficiency.

Clearly also, bots are picking up the fight with similar tools, but to date programmatic campaigns are indeed less likely to be victim of fake conversion as the huge amount of historical and behavioural data they analyze allows to reach unprecedented level of anti-fraud sophistication.

A final treat: Consumer Insights.

Programmatic is also a great source for consumer insights and innovative market research. To this extent, the Toyota example in the US has already made a case for it. Toyota had to market a new hybrid sedan and launched an online campaign targeted at white, Protestant, wealthy households in the centre of urban areas. In parallel, they also decided to run a test with programmatic to compare the different performances.

The results? Programmatic campaign data showed that the most responding customers to the campaign were Afro American households in suburbia, unearthing an untapped basin of prospects that Toyota would have not probably discovered using traditional market research techniques.
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Managing Acer digital presence in 55 markets across PANAM, EMEA and APAC, Francesco is responsible for global design and execution of digital marketing, web operations, e-commerce, CRM, social media and analytics. Francesco  started as a digital entrepreneur and then worked as a management consultant and corporate manager. He has worked in both global headquarters and local operating companies, thus mastering global strategies and complex transformation programs as well as executing pragmatic, local initiatives to drive sales and increase operational efficiency.

Utilizing Technology to Overcome Limited Marketing Resources





By Brandy A. Smith 
Creative & Brand Director 
Check Into Cash / Jones Management






Here’s the challenge: You have a brand with big ideas but no budget. The entire marketing department consists of you and an intern. So how do you meet sales and marketing projections when your resources are just north of nothing? 

The first step is to assess what you do have and plan for what you don’t. If you are the typical business that is looking to increase its footprint, then you are going to need to become part of the “appmosphere”! With the explosion of cloud based SAAS (software as a service), there is a technology solution for almost every marketing channel problem. 

Your website and you, a love story.
A good way to get started with website creation and online marketing is to find a pre-built e-commerce platform. If you are in the business of selling “things,” you will want an easy and inexpensive e-commerce platform. A good platform system lets you seamlessly create product listings, manage inventory, communicate with customers and sell product. Most of these off-the-shelf services are cloud based, which means that they can be managed from your friendly neighborhood web browser. 

Most services will have theme and template marketplaces, which let you pick from a number of website designs, email templates and landing page designs that you can easily install in your store without a web developer or designer. The good themes will allow you to edit your logo, brand colors, photography, blog and various social tie-ins. Many e-commerce platforms also allow you to install “apps” or “plug-ins,” allowing the customer to customize the product or manage how the backend of the site functions (think shipping management). 

Some of the more affordable platforms include Shopify, Big Commerce, Magento, 3D commerce, Webs and Squarespace. Each one has a different set of features and pricing, so make sure you know what you are looking for at the outset. 

If your business is more B2B then B2C then you may want a marketing automation platform. Like e-commerce platforms, these systems feature a content creation platform that allows you to build a site, landing pages and a blog; where they differ is that they have a CRM, email automation and segmentation, social monitoring and posting, form builders that create customer profiles / leads, site analytics, and the ability to integrate with Sales Force.  

Let’s get social!
There are a number of features that are important to look for in any Social Media platform: content curation and creation, social listening, customer advocacy, CRM, scheduled publishing, paid advertising, and distributed social management. Getting  all of these features in one place often means a heftier price tag but there are viable platforms available.

 Time to get connected.
While there are a number of platforms that can increase your marketing output the best apps are the ones that help increase your productivity. I use everything from Dropbox (to help share large graphic files) to Trello (for project management). Factor in the plethora of apps I use in one day and the normal person can be overwhelmed. 

That’s where a product such as Zapier or IFTT can be  extremely handy. These products are workflow apps that tie all of your other apps together. For example, you could have new Trello cards made from your Gmails or send new subscribers from a Google Spreadsheet to MailChimp. You can also use it to share posts from one Facebook page to another, share Pinterest pins on your Facebook Page, or Tweet posts from your facebook page. There are thousands of recipes that can help simplify your existing workflows and help you save time. 

We live in a world that has as an easy “app” answer for everything. You can increase your efficacy as a marketer by choosing tools that enable you to automate and schedule the most mundane of marketing tasks. With a few key purchases and a little set-up time, you can run an entire brand by yourself. The key is to keep calm and do your research. 

Brandy Smith is Brand Director for Check Into Cash, Inc. and Jones Management, Inc. where she oversees the marketing strategy and creative development of over a dozen brands and affiliate businesses. Since joining Check Into Cash in 2010, Brandy has been instrumental in driving company growth and increasing customer engagement through her innovative branding strategies. Prior to joining Check Into Cash, Brandy was the Lead Concept Designer for DS Waters where she was responsible for revamping the logo design and web design of the company’s nine brands.

Using STEAM to Innovate How the Science, Technology, Engineering, Art + Design and Math Movement Applies to Marketing Success

By Jenise Osani
Director, Marketing & E-Commerce
Orlando Utilities Commission

Innovation has typically paved the way for success, giving companies a competitive edge and ensuring their future in the marketplace. From new products and systems to services that disrupt industries, transformation has typically been delegated to the halls of engineering or research & product development. In a global economy where the market is confined less and less by geography, marketing professionals need to embrace disciplines practiced by scientists and engineers in order to define new markets and better reach their targets. Each campaign needs to be a living, breathing social conglomerate.  By heating up the basic steps of your marketing process with new disciplines, your campaign will gain STEAM.  

STEAM is a movement championed by Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and widely adopted by institutions, corporations and individuals who insert Art+Design into the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) movement. Utilizing the same STEM techniques being taught in elementary schools requires a shift in the way we think in order to make today’s nebulous market more concrete. 

Science, by definition, is systematic knowledge gained through observation and experimentation.  This is always the first step of innovation.  And it’s tough. The reason most marketing campaigns fail is because not enough time is spent understanding the customer.  Unfortunately, to appeal to all types of consumers, marketers can end up creating Frankenstein-like monsters that wreaks havoc on their brand instead of the Adonis they envisioned. While thorough discussions, focus groups, and sample testing are excellent ways to apply science to your own research, other less common practices like ethnography open up opportunities to anticipate customer needs before the customer even becomes aware of them. By visiting consumers in their environment to observe and listen without a quantifiable end-game, gaps appear where marketers can place meaningful messages at the most effective moment. 

Technology seems like an obvious way to insert your brand in your customer’s daily routine – complete your campaign creative, place it through a targeted, aggregated online buy dispersed over various digital channels, geo-fence it for good measure, and you’re done.  That is just one path in the consumer journey. Resonating with customers today requires intersecting the right message at the right time to engage them across traditional and digital channels. Coke Zero’s “drinkable advertising” is a literal example; during the 2015 NCAA Men’s Final Four, Coke launched a TV commercial that prompted viewers to sync the sound of a pouring Coke Zero with Shazam, a music discovery app, that unlocked mobile coupons for a free 20-ounce bottle of soda. This concept used smart phone technology to bridge TV, apps and a traditional storefront. The bad news is, consumers are bombarded with messages at a staggering level. The good news is, with proper research and understanding, technology allows you to cut through thos distractions and reach your customers at moments of impact rather than casting a net and hoping for results.  

Engineering is the next logical step to constructing your marketing juggernaut.  You’ve observed, you’ve experimented, you’ve determined your technological opportunities –now it is time to build.  This requires setting up a system of triggers based on consumer behaviors, much like mechanical engineering but with an x-factor of human behavior. For this, marketing automation is key, because campaigns need to be optimal across multiple channels.  Being smart with your content will target your message more directly, but creativity is also needed.  All of the targeted URLs and data won’t help unless the initial structure is built to collect and utilize information.  Today’s campaigns have many moving and integrated parts.  Engineer your initial structure properly for the best odds of success.

Art relies on intuition much like the hypothesis in a science experiment. So, jumping straight to creation and ignoring science, technology and engineering can result in poor design. Proper research and campaign construction allows marketers to truly focus on the most important elements of this step – effective design. No company has embraced Art and Design as extensively as  Apple.  Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer, said, “There's no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots of times.” Feel it.  Feed it.  Grow it.  Pluck the seeds from it, plant them and grow another idea.  And another.  And test those.  It’s this cultivation that provides the best tasting fruit that customers want.

Lastly, let the Math in STEAM be the validation of your marketing genius. But, keep in mind, tracking doesn’t always mean having a successful campaign. As long as you gather statistics and analytics, you can use the systems you’ve engineered to assemble stats and make adjustments.  Put in the initial effort so you can test your creations and adjust along the way.

Leveraging STEAM requires a change in the state of marketing. It is important to remember that the core concepts we understand from the STEM methodology only work when you give respect and attention to Art and Design.  As marketing professionals, we all know the importance of Art and Design, but sometimes we forget the importance of the other four.  Working through all five phases will pay off in new opportunities and market share, but you have to be willing to change the form of what we do as marketers. 

Marketing to Today’s “Super-Hero” Customer





By Jennifer Davis
Vice President, Marketing
Planar





A lot has been written about consumer-centric marketing in recent years.  The desire to provide relevant content and position the brand in the context of that value.  Seth Godin’s permission marketing principles.  The move to personalization.  The emotional attachment that brands should create for their customers.  Across all communication channels and at every customer touch point.

Today’s empowered consumer doesn’t just want to be educated.  They don’t just want to be engaged.  Frankly, they want to be super heroes.  They want to be the heroes of their own story and the brands they choose reinforce this perspective. They want to call a car whenever they need it, like the Batmobile, and the adoption of Uber and Lyft is evidence that the on-demand concept is appealing.  They want to have their whims indulged.  They want their news personalized and curated.  They want to keep up with friends of their choosing.

As marketers we have a responsibility to build the customer experience into the core of our company’s DNAs and into every medium or channel through which we communicate. So, how can customers be granted super powers in our marketing? 

First and foremost, today’s buyers must remain in control.  Our terms of service, privacy policies, product quality, production practices, and priorities must align with what customers want.  We start with our integrity when building trust.  I know that many customers might relinquish control without a second thought, but it’s our job not to let them do themselves harm. 

Secondly, we create opportunities for customers to have power on a scale that they couldn’t have without us.  Today’s savvy consumers are impressed with nothing less than super human strength and the ability to fly.  They want to see their name on a can of Coca-Cola.  We help them place a message on a personalized M&M.  We can put their picture on a billboard in Times Square.  We can put a mark on the world.  One that is unique to them. 

This can be part of the product or service we are selling or it can it be something we do in our marketing.  The distinction between the two is blurring and so is the customer’s experience of the brand across all the touchpoints, so marketing has a leadership responsibility.  For instance, the new iPhone camera takes beautiful, high resolution photos and video.  Why not build on the out-of-home ad campaign we have seen where photographs from iPhone users are printed on subway signs and billboards with the caption “taken with an iPhone” by creating a YouTube/Vimeo/Flickr style platform for sharing videos and photos taken with iPhones and have those images featured on the Apple site, social media, and digital billboards and in homes as an Apple TV screen saver? 

Next, we can connect customers visibly within the community.  We can give them something to brag about and some connection to their idols and friends.  It starts with sharing features, but goes beyond that.  We as market leading brands need to make our consumer constituents heros among their peers.  We can provide customers street credibility or expand their influence.  It’s the Apple sticker in the Macintosh boxes on Volkswagens across the country or the look of a teenager wearing Beats headphones by Dr. Dre around his neck.  I see this as a gap in store and airline loyalty programs.  Members with elite status aren’t given rewards that are visible to the community of other shoppers or guests that undoubtedly share other circles of influence.

It is also a limitation with the nearly ubiquitous category of hybrid cars.  Imagine hybrid cars connected with a gamification system that allows one driver to compete with others for fuel efficiency.  Similar to how FitBit users can track steps on a leader board.  Imagine how many more fuel efficient cars would be sold with this kind of gamification?

Consumer fashion brands do this well by offering sponsorships or free product to highly influential individuals, but could that scale to something that other brands could do even if they don’t have a celebrity endorsement program or a full-scale newsroom?  I imagine so, if we were creative in our marketing.

Lastly, we can give customers a mission.  As marketers, we give our customers an opportunity to be involved in greater causes and the power to benefit others with their super powers.  This is what Whole Foods has done with the wooden nickels for “bring your own bag” rewards or Starbucks involvement in (Red).  You could allow customers to donate a perks to non-profits of their choice.  Loyal customers could be allowed to pick charitable giving campaigns from their favorite brands.  Customers could donate their photos from their Hawaii vacation to be featured in the advertising or on the website of the visitor’s bureau for the State. At Planar Systems we recently offered our customers and employees an opportunity to participate in a fun run in Portland, to benefit a local alternative high school.  This example of the “do well, by doing good” approach which is growing in importance and influence among our customers.

With a purposeful emphasis on integrity, giving users power, community connections, and missional marketing, we can transform our customers into the super heroes that will not only show us loyalty, but will attract others to us.


Jennifer serves as the Vice President of Marketing and Product Strategy at Planar Systems, a leader in differentiated display systems and digital signage with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. Jennifer can be found @jenniferdavis on Twitter and on LinkedIn at www.linkedin/in/jenniferbdavis.

How Content Marketing and New Technologies are Transforming B2B Marketing Models




By Giuseppe Caltabiano
Vice President, Marketing Integration - Social Media,
PR, Content Process and Tools
Schneider Electric





B2B firms tend to be concerned that their solutions aren’t attractive enough for content marketing  – but this usually occurs only if the approach to doing content marketing is wrong in the first place. So, how do you transform your marketing strategy from an outdated traditional model to a modern and successful model aligned with growth and business goals?

This can be done through proper integration of content and social media marketing and a deep transformation of the overall marketing model, using new marketing technologies and tools. Technology’s influence spans all industries and continues to change and revolutionize everything it touches. The content-marketing industry is no exception.

Traditional marketing has always been about getting company products and services in front of the audience. Content Marketing is about meeting the informational needs of potential customers so they become interested in you.

In the last few months I have been working on a content strategy that is going to change the approach of my business unit, moving from an advanced but traditional to a new, modern, content-based marketing model. The new model will introduce elements of uniqueness, like the Business Unit editorial board and the Business Unit editorial calendar (many boards and many calendars were in place before the transformation). It will integrate content, social media and PR. It will make advantage of the latest marketing technologies for content management, distribution and cohesive analytics.

Based on a definition from Content Marketing Institute (CMI), "Content Marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Why do companies need a content marketing strategy today? 
Content marketing is about creating interesting information your customers are passionate about so they actually pay attention to you. Content Marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. With content’s high adoption rates (27 million pieces of contents shared every day), there is great potential to provide measurable business benefits, and enterprise-wide appeal.  A strategic content marketing program is virtually essential to staying competitive in today’s marketplace.

A content marketing strategy has to be documented. Based on research from Content Marketing Institute, firms with a properly documented marketing strategy are far more likely to consider themselves effective at content marketing and are able to justify spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing. I think there is a tendency to overcomplicate the strategy definition process. So, I have put together a simple list. A well prepared content marketing strategy should include the following elements:

1. The business case for change/innovation
Firms need to assess the situation "as is" today and start thinking about a "to be" model, based on objectives and medium-long term vision. Content Marketers have to communicate reasons for creating content and moving away from a traditional model, the risks involved, and the vision of what success will look like. This is more likely to gain executive and functional support for your strategy.

2. The business plan for content marketing
This covers the goals you have for your content program, the unique value the firm is looking to provide through content, and details of its business model. It also should outline the obstacles and opportunities you may encounter as you execute your plan.

3. Editorial Process & Procedures
The business plan has to stand side by side with an internal transformation. In fact, today's marketing organizations are barely designed to properly support a content marketing strategy.  The content editorial board is the core of your transformation. The board has to handle all content-related requests and issues, has to define internal communication and distribution plan and channel strategy. In large organizations, like the one I work for, the editorial board also has the key role of alignment and coordination between several division and sources.

Also, you can’t have a proper content strategy without the tools to manage it. And the best tools are the ones that combine a content marketing platform with workflow, calendar, publication and distribution functionalities.

The editorial calendar is much more than just a calendar with content assigned to dates. A good editorial calendar maps content production to the audience persona. Ultimately, your editorial calendar is your most powerful tool as a content marketer. Without a plan, an editorial board and editorial calendar, nothing will happen.

3. Audience persona and content map
This is where you analyze the audiences for whom you will create content, what their needs are, and what their content engagement cycle might look like. You may also want to map out content you can deliver throughout their buyer’s journey in order to move them closer to their goals.

4. Brand story 
Here, you characterize your content marketing in terms of what ideas and messages you want to communicate, how do they are connected with your brand(s) story, how those messages differ from the competition, and how you see the landscape evolving once you have shared them with your audience. For instance, this is my company brand story: working on a content marketing strategy we've secured that values and messages of our brand are reflected in all new content created.

5. Channel strategy, including distribution and amplification 
Content marketing strategy comes first, followed by channel strategy. But as content marketers, it is our responsibility to look at all available channels to tell our stories and adapt contents based on the channels. These include: the technology platforms you will use to tell and distribute your story, what your criteria, processes, and objectives are for each one, and how you will connect them so that they create a cohesive conversation. Today, the most innovative and forward-thinking companies have merged content, social and PR "channels". By doing so, they can capitalize on the synergies between these three.

6. Measurement and Optimization
Everything you measure needs to start with an objective. Dashboard and KPIs have to be in place in order to measure results and facilitate decisions. Until a few years ago, the ability to track real ROI from one piece of content was virtually non-existent. Now,  all that has changed. Marketing automation tools like HubSpot, Marketo and ActOn let marketers track which content gains the most engagement, leads and revenue.

As a conclusion, you might not be an expert content marketer; but you have to diligently plan and document your strategy. In some cases you will need to re-design your organization to be aligned with the strategy and to make things happen. Gone are the days of content marketing simply being a fancy term for articles and press releases. Now, companies can easily create media contents, videos, infographics, podcasts and other value-adds  for a well-integrated content marketing strategy. Furthermore, the way companies use content marketing technology to combine original and syndicated content in a community style is unique and indicative of the future of marketing.
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Giuseppe Caltabiano is Vice President for Marketing Integration at Schneider Electric; he is responsible for integration of Content, Social Media and PR strategy to support and enable Data Centres and IT solutions. His current focus is on driving improved processes, tools and performance of earned media initiatives for the IT Business Unit of Schneider Electric, including Social Media and PR, as well as Content processes & tools and redefining the campaign development blueprint process for business demand creation and capture.

Giuseppe has an MBA from Milan SDA Bocconi School of Management, a degree in Electronic Engineering from the Milan Polytechnic University and trained on Mergers & Acquisitions at the London Business School. Giuseppe has more than 15 years of marketing experience in the fields of IT, Software and Industrial Automation. He currently lives in London.

Friday, August 28, 2015

Top 10 Action Items from MARKETING WORLD 2015: Integrating Marketing into Your Growth and Customer Strategy




 

By Nicole Coons
Marketing Vanguard/Principal Consultant,
Integrated Marketing Solutions

Frost & Sullivan






Marketing leaders from companies large and small convened at the Boston, MA Copley Plaza for the 16th annual MARKETING WORLD 2015 Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, eager to share their day-to-day challenges, solutions and strategies for staying relevant to customers and advancing marketing’s role in creating and sustaining value for the business.


Participants at MARKETING WORLD 2015 captured their top takeaways, ranging from how to run more successful programs, to how to better manage relationships and elevate the role of marketing for greater visibility and career success.

  1. To be successful at integrated marketing in the future, all-inclusive planning and insight-filled strategies are paramount. While metrics and consistency remain important parts of the integrated marketing puzzle, advice to gain buy-in from the top and to work closely with sales was echoed in numerous sessions. Marketers felt that any integrated marketing program designed with insights from the business and buy-in from sales about the lead criteria performed best. Hint: a lead is whatever sales says it is, but get sales’ definition before launching your program.
  2. Flexibility is also key to integrated marketing success. Gone are the days of developing the perfect campaign from start to finish down to the last period and then sending it off to sail and hoping for the best. Now marketers are experiencing the most success when plans include the ability to “test early and often”, as one participant explained. This implies that marketers build in to the timeline and budget opportunities to tweak, test, revise, and repeat to ensure messages and strategies are having the greatest impact.
  3. When building messages for your target audiences—think 360 degrees. To develop a full picture of your customer and his or her decision journey, consider the experience from all perspectives—from influencers, across touch-points, interactions with your sales and service people and beyond.
  4. Let your customer see himself first in your marketing before he sees your brand. Participants shared that they were reminded of the importance of building messages for your target audiences by asking about them, versus asking them what they think about you. Trust that you’ll have the opportunity to tell them about your company once you’ve established that you understand your customer’s challenges and have an interest in them solving their solution.
  5. Technology alone cannot solve gaps in communication between marketing and sales. One takeaway that was reiterated time and again throughout the Executive MindXchange was that innovative technologies and tools to connect marketing and sales are useful, but not without first having established relationships the good old-fashioned way—engaging in face-to-face, real-time, in-field interactions between marketing and sales.
  6. Balance analytics with people for optimized performance. Session leaders shared approaches for managing results, including several discussions of ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) and an example of how to leverage the RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed) matrix for mapping responsibility to the marketing and sales functions as a lead flows through the funnel. The key insight, however, is to develop the ability to balance the relative importance of analytics and people, and you’ll win far more support than a program that favors one over the other.
  7. Deal with the digital transformation by a combination of in-house resources and consultants. Marketers suggest that today we must design our teams with intention and flexibility. Be clear about the business goals, and be open to multiple ways of arriving at the solution. Whether to leverage in-house or out-sourced talent for new digital or progressive ideas, the verdict from participants is that a combination is best—use internal as well as external resources, depending on the talent and timeline of your initiative. Some companies recommend using interns to start new initiatives.
  8. Omni-channel marketing is here to stay. When the options seem too broad, marketers suggest we must simply prioritize our goals, select our audiences, refine our messages and innovate in our outreach to harness the power of omni-channel marketing.
  9. Be a business leader first; marketer second. For marketing executives looking to step up their game, the key takeaway is to speak business language to leadership, not marketing language. Have the confidence to say “no”—one participant quipped, “Just say no to the holiday party!” Prove the value of marketing by quantifying it and including business leadership early and often in decisions as they are made. Resist the urge for the “big reveal” and build trust daily.
  10. Take time out to build your connections and get inspired by others. One participant’s key takeaway was “No matter the company's size, we all have similar marketing challenges. It’s good to know there are many solutions available.” Numerous marketers at MARKETING WORLD 2015 chimed in with the takeaway that spending some time outside the office listening, sharing, and asking questions of their peers in other industries was more valuable than just reading about these same topics or thinking about them independently. Invest in building your marketing network and you’ll be enriched both personally and professionally.
These were just ten of the potentially hundreds of take-aways from the MARKETING WORLD 2015 Executive MindXchange.  If you attended, we’d like to know what insights you took away. If you didn’t make it, what questions do you hope are answered at next year’s event? Tell us below!

Nicole Coons is Marketing Vanguard for Frost & Sullivan’s Integrated Marketing Solutions Practice. Her work over the last decade has focused on helping companies connect more meaningfully –and more profitably—with their communities and customers through strong message alignment and end-to-end integrated marketing programs.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Organizing an International Marketing Research Program

By Daniel J. Colquhoun
Senior Vice President, Customer Research
Frost & Sullivan

Global marketing is based on the premise that consumers in comparable socioeconomic groups with comparable disposable incomes, aspirations, exposure to media and consumption habits would be more like their counterpart in other markets than they would be of their fellow countrymen in different groups.


This meant that brand management and appropriate advertising strategies could be universally employed across boundaries, contrary to the 1970s and 80s habit of individual country management.


This would ultimately offer economies of scale in production, media buying and advertising development and execution. There are also significant management economies inherent in the idea as policies, training, and staff movement become more standardized.


Several factors arose that caused this concept to be re-evaluated. In some cases it has been rejected outright while in others various hybrids have developed and subsequently coined as new catch phrases, such as: Think global, act local, Global strategy, local tactics, and Glocalization.


These phrases recognize that many of the international and regional similarities are overrun by local idiosyncrasies in the form of cultures, language and emotional appeals as far as the consumer is concerned.


With these points in mind, this article addresses the effect on marketing research information systems in two parts. In this first installment we cover the many obstacles that stand in the way of what is still, in this global economy, an ambitious and challenging endeavor. The second part of the series will look at the structure of an effective international marketing research program.
 

Challenges to Consider

Multi-country marketing research presents unique challenges as a result of the very detailed information to be collected from customers across many countries, and by virtue of the necessity to integrate these into a single reporting system. In determining how a multi-country research study should be structured the following potential obstacles to success must be considered:

  • Availability of market research information. Much of the information required may not be readily available, particularly in developing markets.
  • Comparability across markets. Even in cases where the information is available, it is unlikely to be comparable in terms of definition of coverage and delivery.
  • Quality standards for research. Different research suppliers will have widely ranging standards as to what they believe to be acceptable quality. This may be higher or lower than the initiating country’s standards. Also, what constitutes good research will vary; some markets are heavy on data but low on interpretation, others are the opposite.
  • Certain research approaches that will work in one market will not work in others. This relates to methods of data collection (e.g., web-based research), the nature of the respondent, participation incentives expected (or not).
  • Levels of research expertise and knowledge are also highly variable. A standard multivariate analysis technique may be nothing special in one market but very complex in others.
  • Individuals respond to the same research question in many different ways depending on the language and culture. Thus comparisons cannot be made at face value.

So, any multi-country program needs a very systematic approach to marketing research if the final delivered data is going to be of any use in terms of:

  • Accuracy;
  • Comparability;
  • Relevance.

Only against this background and with the aid of this information can a truly global marketing strategy be selected, developed and implemented.
In reality there is little chance of getting a fully comprehensive research program underway. Apart from the logistical problems, the twin specters of timing and budget loom large.


Budget


First, you need to decide whether the research is going to be paid for locally or by head office. This will have implications on the speed of implementation and on the final content of the research. If you expect the local company to pay, you can expect a longer process for agreement on the coverage, and it is more likely that your data will not be comparable in all areas across all markets. Yet, central funding can be expensive.


Also, don’t expect research costs to be proportional to the value of the market. They will generally reflect the levels of salaries and rents in the country. Unfortunately, for statistical reasons you would need the same sample for a country of three million as for 300 million, assuming a similar level of population heterogeneity.


Timing
 

Here our concern is with the time that it takes to assimilate the research data from a large number of countries. This normally requires considerable internal resources.

In practice you need to prioritize the research budget in terms of:

  1. Countries. Even if you have a global strategy you may not be in the right state of preparation to put it into effect in every country at the same time. Prioritize on the most appropriate countries in terms of the market ripeness, the stage of its development and the likely speed of implementation on the strategy by local management.
  2. Product markets. You should generally concentrate on the core businesses as you will have the most expertise in those markets and so the greater understanding. Still, they are often likely to be the most competitive.
  3. Areas of research coverage. You cannot cover every aspect of the research. So which are the most important?
In the next installment of this two part series we will look at an example of an ideal program set-up, and describe the benefits of using one central research agency to coordinate a multi-country research study.