Get the latest news from Godfrey. Godfrey provides full-service, integrated business-to-business branding and marketing communications services.

Hyperintegration: Moving beyond reach and frequency

Jim Everhart — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:04:00 -0500

The revolution in how people use media has ignited the upheaval in marketing communications strategy we are calling hyperintegration. It begins with media, but doesn’t end there.

Time was, the job of media professionals was to make the best purchase among a limited number of advertising media. In the consumer world, that meant TV, magazines, newspapers, and radio. Maybe outdoor.

In business-to-business, the range was even tighter: which trade journals fit the best and were the most cost-effective?

The explosive growth not only in the number of options, but in their essential nature has changed the situation dramatically. A podcast offers informal, but personal, contact. A video shows rather than tells. A webcast demonstrates expertise. And it’s hard to beat search – paid or organic – for generating leads.

The point is, it’s not just about reach and frequency any more.
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Where ideas come from.

Melissa Zane — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:48:00 -0500

Inspiration can come from anywhere, and the spark of an idea can come from anyone.

Not long ago, I was part of a team that needed to come up with a positioning ad campaign for one of our clients.

Our account manager reviewed the situation with our creative team. Towards the end of his review, I remember him saying, "OK, and here are a few of my stupid thoughts and ideas...." Then he continued to rattle-off several things.

One of his so-called "stupid ideas" really stuck in my head. So much so, I spent hours one weekend working on taking that idea—and several others—to the next level, showing how they could work in a series.

During our next team meeting, the creative folks and I presented the ideas, and then built upon those ideas, making them stronger and stronger. There is nothing I find worse than a so-so idea that looks good.
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Are your employees on board?

Erin Michalak — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:50:00 -0500

There is no doubt that your brand is your most valuable asset. Brands build loyalty. But, if your employees can’t deliver that brand promise at each and every touch point with your customers, then your brand will begin losing value—quickly. Getting your employees on board before you role out your brand to the marketplace is essential.

Although it is essential, many marketers often skip the crucial step of internal branding. Selling your brand to your employees should come way before you try to sell your brand to your customers and/or prospects. If your employees don’t believe in what you are selling or don’t understand it, then it is likely all you will deliver to your customers are empty promises.

Your first step, after you’ve determined what your brand positioning and messaging should be, is to infuse the brand personality into all aspects of the company. Support from upper management is key.
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Strategy, Branding and Leadership

Chuck Manners — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:45:00 -0500

I’ve never been a “GE glorifier”, but I have been paying a little more attention to GE lately, as a student of business. Specifically, the strategic leadership of CEO Jeffrey Immelt. In my opinion, he's finally stepped out of the giant shadow of his predecessor and mentor, Jack Welch. Since December 2002, Immelt has sold off more than $75 billion in GE businesses such as its plastics and insurance units, and most recently, appliances (a business once synonymous with its brand name) while spending more than $50 billion on acquisitions in faster-growing sectors including wind power and aviation. Strategy in action.

Mr. Immelt has a very good sense of what he wants the GE brand to stand for going forward - innovation in emerging businesses in the 21st century (for now, that means big investments in health-care and energy.) Much of the growth in
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Stop obsessing about your home page

J. Leigh Brown — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:39:00 -0500

In every b-to-b web site redesign project, the home page always gets a lot of attention. Not only does everyone have an opinion, every area of the company usually feels that they need to be included in the process. Often a committee is created, usually with some acronym as a name to inspire action or teamwork. (WACS, WAT, WEBA) And then, the battle begins. Company divisions start clamoring for heavy exposure on the home page. Upper management wants a lengthy Flash intro splash screen. (No, this isn’t dead yet, and yes, it’s still a bad idea. See note below.) The IR team insists its messages should trump marketing’s. There are months of meetings, rounds of designs, and the end product reflects the company’s internal strife. The final design is often a clunky compromise, a concession to meet the political needs of the company—not the needs of the customer.

Oh, well. They won’t ever see your home page anyway.
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Hyperintegration: It's not about technology

Jim Everhart — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:54:00 -0500

We recently had a discussion with a vendor who, in the process of extolling his web analytics product, said his company’s technology went beyond clicks and conversions. That ended up being troublesome for two reasons:

First, we’d be happy with reliable information on clicks and conversions, thank you. We’re not convinced we’re getting it from some of our existing resources. So we weren’t about to let a sales guy get away with changing the subject because he didn’t want to address our concerns.

And second, he offered a solution that was even worse. His company’s megabucks solution, engagement mapping, would track the activity of individual site visitors and try to give appropriate “credit” to other media, like online ads that a visitor may have seen, instead of just the last click.

That’s trying way too hard. It’s building a technology solution to a marketing question.
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What You Believe, is Branding

Curt Hitchcock — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:34:00 -0500

I must confess. I’m a believer in Marriott Hotels. I recently discovered, I've stayed at Marriott properties over 100 times in the last 10 years. It’s not that I see other hotel brands as being inferior. I just find myself almost “automatically” making reservations at a Marriott when traveling. Why? Because, through experience, I believe the experience will be positive and I’ve not been disappointed.

Looking at it from a big-picture perspective, isn’t building belief the essence of what good B-to-B branding is all about? Without belief, there can be no trust, without trust there can be no loyalty. If a company, regardless of the products or services they offer, is not seen as having credibility, can any reasonable person be expected to believe that doing business with them is a wise decision?

Sure there are other elements that go into effective B-to-B branding like consistency of expression, positive touch point
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Branding as Self-revelation

Jim Everhart — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:59:00 -0500

We’ve talked often about the role of branding in helping to improve marketing communications effectiveness and that certainly is its most obvious use, especially when you are trying to justify budgets to management and financial people.

Branding has a “softer” side, however. And that is branding’s role as self-revelation, as an opportunity to tell the world who you are.

For some, that can be a major event in a corporation’s life, giving you several equally-important opportunities:

•    To understand the past, what made customers trust you years ago, and how they think of you now.
•    To organize the present, to sort out what issues are temporary and transitory, and what factors have long-term consequences.
•    To shape the future, to decide what kind of company you will be in five, ten, or even 20 years.

To do that, of course, branding has
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Godfrey hires Christian Templeton,Leanne Terpak and Chris Houck

Steve Graham — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:15:00 -0500

Godfrey hires Christian Templeton,Leanne Terpak and Chris Houck

The Marketing Mosaic

Russ Green — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:03:00 -0500

New technologies. Media fragmentation. The changing marketing landscape. B-to-B marketing professionals are dealing with them – in many cases struggling with them – as day-to-day realities of the way we “do” marketing today.

One of the consequences of the new marketing landscape is that, as you necessarily devote ourselves to learning new technologies and media channels, you can lose focus on the big picture. It takes time and attention to learn how to properly execute a search engine optimization program, and keep it going continuously. It takes time and attention to implement and constantly tweak a search engine marketing program for continuous improvement. And to know, understand and leverage the continuing stream of new media opportunities and techniques available to B-to-B marketers.

There are endless details and procedures involved in
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It's May 2008 - Do you know where your audience is?

Stacy Whisel — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:53:00 -0500

The Changing Media Landscape - the notion that the way today’s consumers get their information is fragmented. Today there is a full spectrum of communication technologies, and they are constantly evolving. This new media landscape, applies not only to consumers, but also impacts the B2B market.

This is evidenced by a new study released last week, published by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and conducted by Ipsos Research, illustrating that America’s business executives are shifting their media habits.

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=82465

The study found that 70% of the C-Suite received a daily
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Marketing Ideas for HVAC Contractors

Mike Wayde — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:52:00 -0500

The economy is creeping towards a recession. The DOE’s 13 SEER mandate has helped level the playing field, household buying habits have changed dramatically since the popularity of the internet, and media options have drastically fragmented. With all of this going on, how can a low to mid level HVAC contractor compete against the big guys? While there is no perfect answer to this question, there are some suggestions to help you spend your precious marketing dollars wisely.

Start by looking to your manufacturer and distributor advertising programs. There are literally thousands of dollars available to dealers who agree to use branded and sometimes pre-packaged advertising programs. In fact some manufacturers offer up to 4 times a dealer’s advertising investment!

Next, think about timing and placement of your advertising. What are you really getting out of your investment? Case in point: if you put all of your dollars into yellow pages advertising then you
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Improving Conversion Rates - How B-to-B Marketers Can Use A/B Testing

J. Leigh Brown — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:31:00 -0500

In a perfect web world, your web site landing pages would have great conversion rates. A usability expert, user behavior observations, and qualitative research would be a part of every web design project. You would have hard data to know what works before unleashing your designs.

The reality is most B-to-B marketers don’t have the budgets or time to include this type of testing to optimize landing pages. But this doesn’t mean you should resign yourself to continue blindly driving visitors to your site, not knowing why your landing pages aren’t working or how to fix them.

Getting results from your landing page
If you’re running a campaign and not seeing results on your landing page, consider A/B testing. Although it has limitations, A/B testing is an inexpensive and relatively simple way to improve your site’s conversion rates.
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Avoid the Sales Pitch in Your Podcast

Todd Walter — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:27:00 -0500

Lately I’ve been riding the bus to work, trying to save on gas. A fringe benefit is that I can listen to podcasts on my MP3 player.

Many B-to-B marketers (including some of our clients) are using podcasts to reach specific audiences who want to be informed. It’s a great tool for companies to establish thought leadership. However, you should avoid the temptation to record a blatant product pitch or “audio brochure.” Instead, content should meet the audience expectation that they’ll learn something new.

Your podcast needs to be educational and entertaining. The sales pitch can come later, when the listener chooses to take the next step and request more information (maybe even in exchange for their e-mail address).

First and foremost, a podcast should deliver useful information.
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Advance Sales Via The Web Part 3

Mike Wayde — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:40:00 -0500

More sophisticated sites offer product comparisons and tools that enable customers to better choose their own solutions. But even something as simple as a brochure, offered as a free downloadable pdf, can go a long way towards deepening the relationship between you and potential customers.

As you provide customers with tools and information, remember to instill a level of confidence. Customer testimonials are helpful, but only if they are genuine and presented well.

Validation from outside sources, like trade organizations and government agencies, also goes a long way toward instilling confidence in your company. Consider including their logos on your Web site where visitors will see them.
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To Lead or Follow?

Stacie Minnich — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:45:00 -0500

To Lead or Follow?

It’s always a tough question that requires insight and thought. Are you a trailblazer and take the risk of leading the pack or choose to follow along with the established program?

With all of the new 2.0 technologies and initiatives that are available at our fingertips, many prospective advertisers are fighting this battle. Treading on unfamiliar territory can be scary and unsettling but that shouldn’t ultimately lead to the back seat.

According to Advertising Age, General Motors, the country’s third-largest advertiser, is getting ready to shift half of its $3 billion budget into digital and one-to-one marketing within the next three years. Surely, that decision to be an industry advertising leader will help to set them apart and reach a larger audience.
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SEO - Quality over Quantity

Mike Wayde — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:45:00 -0500

In a web 2.0 world, it is becoming a continuous struggle to stay on top of SEO best practices. Staying at the basics, companies need to understand that SEO is moving more to quality as opposed to quantity.

In the past many companies got on the SEO bandwagon by focusing primarily on Meta data. Between meta tags and meta keywords, companies spent more time and effort on the meta information than on the web content itself.

Businesses need to understand that the SEO landscape is constantly evolving. No longer are web spiders just looking at meta data. They’re looking at more important information about a site to determine how high it should rank. Here are some basics for business to business marketers.

Consider focusing your meta descriptions and keywords around solutions and not just hardware. Traditionally, customers are looking to solve problems, not just to look at equipment.
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The key to a successful SEM campaign

Melinda Bauer — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:06:00 -0500

To start, the key to a successful search engine marketing (SEM) campaign, just like any advertising campaign, is determining the goal of the program, and defining the specific products and/or services that will be promoted. Focusing on keywords and phases often leads to a long list of keywords that you then try to mold into a campaign.

Another important step is determining the content of your landing pages. Do you already have landing pages that support what will be promoted? If not they need to be developed, and designed so that visitors feel compelled to break anonymity. This is where the visitor moves from a nameless "page view" to a prospect. Also, having landing pages that are relevant to your keywords and your ad will help increase your ranking (and enhance your visitor's experience).
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Godfrey hires Anthony Tornetta

Steve Graham — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Godfrey has hired Anthony Tornetta as public relations account manager

Social media in b-to-b marketing -- business sense or nonsense?

J. Leigh Brown — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:29:00 -0500

Many b-to-b marketers are slow to add social media elements to their marketing techniques.

Maybe you aren’t sure how to integrate it. Or you’re afraid that your company might not buy into the idea. Perhaps you don’t yet understand why social media is important. Not only is it important, it’s an essential communication method that all b-to-b marketers need to be involved in. Those marketers who participate as early adopters in this new landscape will have the ability to lead—and succeed.

Social media isn’t about technology. Or some new buzzword, popular web site, or new blogging tool. It’s about sociology—how people interact, gather, and share information. The tools and distribution methods will continue to evolve. The most popular social networks, bookmarking sites, news aggregators, and media communities will change, and the ways to distribute content
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