social media strategy Archives - Marketing & Innovation

Digital Marketing: What is at stake for B2B companies?

17/10/201728/04/2018Agnès Lopez

A friend of mine is working in the marketing department of a medium sized B2B industrial company. The latter has just over 300 employees and operates on a large network of distributors throughout the world. The business is quite flourishing. But things can change. In fact, things are changing very fast today. My friend believes he should board on the digital marketing wave, to increase his company’s visibility on the web: in other words, he wants to develop a strategic presence on social networks. The problem is that he is not really familiar with all the digital concepts. So, he turned to me and asked me for advice.

This lead to a long reflection with him about what digital marketing really is and especially what the benefits can be for him and his business. It is important to understand digital before rushing into it prematurely. Finally, I quickly described to him the different steps that are essential to the success of his “digital marketing” project.

Digital Marketing and B2B: the two make a pair!

Digital marketing is first a matter of trend. To be competitive and innovative it is necessary to stay in the race, and therefore follow the flow.

“B2B marketing budgets are shifting to digital and social. Overall, B2B marketing budgets are expected to increase, on average, by about 5% in the coming year. But spending on digital marketing programs is projected to rise three times as fast, and over the next five years, the share of budget dollars dedicated to social media marketing will more than double.”

But digital marketing goes well beyond a simple trend. It has real advantages in B2B.

What are the advantages of digital marketing in B2B

Multi-channel: By using multiple channels, digital marketing offers many opportunities (complementary to traditional marketing) and allows users / companies to act at all levels of the purchasing process

Cost-efficiency: Digital marketing is less costly than “traditional” marketing; indeed “…Even stalwart traditional marketers know that they cannot compete the Internet’s potential to reach thousands with just a single post”. Printing and shipment costs are not taken into account in digital, this is the advantage of CPC (you pay only when click). Read more →

Adblocking: a cat-and-mouse game built on trust

20/10/201519/07/2018Yann Gourvennec

Adblocking is a hot topic these days. A never ending cat and mouse game between advertisers and consumers in which ingenious developers are constantly finding new ways of avoiding or trying to avoid advertising pressure. What Adblocking is showing us too is a lack of trust on the part of consumers. Who else but Doc Searls, one of the co-writers of the celebrated Cluetrain Manifesto was in better position to raise the subject? This is exactly what he did at our late September meeting in Prague*. Once more, consumer trust ranked high on the agenda.

“Adblocking is becoming a big deal and it’s even one of the biggest downloads and even more so in certain countries like Germany and Austria” Doc said in his introduction to the subject. “This has grown and grown and journalists are describing it as a War now”. Even better, Apple has made this decision to add adblocking in the IOS 9 SDK. You will then be able to block whatever you want. “Immediately after this change” Doc said, “Adblockers became the most popular apps on the store”.

Adblockers-Trust-consumers — Doc Searls talking about Adblocking in front of the panel of ODR experts at the Prague September meeting organised by Youstice

Adblocking: Apple knows before consumers they really need it

“It’s very easy for the Press to describe this as an Apple vs Google feud” Doc added “but the point is somewhere else”. Doc’s argument is that Apple is making it easy for consumers, because “they know what the customers want even before they know themselves what they want”. Apple has indeed taught us to expect the unexpected, offer products we don’t need apparently, and then once the object has been created we suddenly realise we are craving for it.

One of the interesting things about the Adblock controversies is that it emphasises that our world works through advertising. “But online, the junk-mail world has taken over and this isn’t what we were expecting” Doc added. Things have gone out of control. The publishing world acts as if they didn’t understand what is happening. To them, this is how the world works and that’s that but “we, as consumers, we have never signed up for this”.

Why do we need trust in business?

Lea Whing has an interesting point to make on this. when Doc Searls mentions trust, what are we hearing? “Are we only interested in trust because this is what will trigger consumer purchase?” She asked wittily, “or is it because people need it? If so, what do customers really need?”

Brands on Social Media: “Start With Strategy, Not Listening”

05/05/201405/05/2014Yann Gourvennec

Today’s selection is my friend Dominique Lahaix’s piece on Ecairn’s blog. Ecairn is a leading social media influence measurement and management tool, primarily aimed at gauging influence and building networks of bloggers in a co-creation spirit. In that piece, it seems that Dominique is leaning towards my vision of Digital Media (and Social in particular) , and advises brands to start with Strategy (vs. listening, engagement and all the trappings which are only technical and therefore should only come second). As a reminder I have reposted the video of my presentation at Atlanta in 2009 in which I was explaining just that. Sometimes, being too much of a visionary means that you have to wait for years for the mass to come to your conclusions; but this is a flaw which I am prepared to take like a man.

Why should Social Marketing restart with strategy | Influencers & Community Marketing (by Dominique Lahaix)

Wherever we look, we find evidence that Brands get limited value from Social Media:Here is an article mentioning that out of 5000 top Youtube Chanels, only 2% are brands.and here is Chris Heuer post: Social Business is Deadand another excellent one from Augie Ray: What if everything you knew about social was wrong.

My 2009 SMBC presentation at SocialMedia.org on Vimeo.

The main thing is that most marketers approach Social as just an extra channel to promote products and services defined … when social media did not even exist and with the same techniques and metrics as before.But there is more into it, provided that marketers can challenge what used to know and really digest the paradigm shift that Social Media has brought to business, marketing and sales:

via Why should Social Marketing restart with strategy | Influencers & Community Marketing.

Digital Marketing and B2B: the two make a pair!

What are the advantages of digital marketing in B2B

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