Survey Design Tips

There was a time when everyone:
A. Issued press releases whether or not they had news.
B. Asked about getting on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
C. Conducted surveys that all too often did not contain news.
D. All of the Above.
E. Didn't think this was a cute or clever way to introduce a blog post about surveys.

Ok, the answer may be D & E, but since organizations still conduct surveys, I thought it useful to cite some good points from Paul Gillin:

• Validate assumptions -- surveys should be a fishing expedition.
  
• Match the survey type to your objectives -- online surveys are good for some purposes, focus groups for others. Make sure you understand the benefits and risks of a survey type before fielding it.
  
• Make the survey interesting -- seems basic, but many surveys are not.
• Keep it simple -- again, seems, um, simple, but many surveys are not.
• Avoid the most common questionnaire errors -- such as "leading the respondent with questions that mention your product name or use your marketing language."

Gillin's article is hard to find, but I found a version of it here.

Management Advice from Alan Mulally

According to Alan Mullay, CEO of Ford, he focuses on four things:

1. We’re here to create a business of serving customers with the best cars and trucks in the world, so where is the world going? Where is the technology going? Where are the customers going? Where is the competition going?
2. What business are we in? What are we going to focus on? What’s going to be our business? Are we going to have a house of brands of vehicles? Are we going to focus on the blue oval? Are we going to be competitive on quality and cost and fuel efficiency? Are we going be best in class? So what’s our point of view about the value proposition of our company?
3. Balance the near term with the longer term. And especially in the environment like we see today, where you absolutely want to keep investing for the future, even though you could invest less and make your business performance look better in the near term. Do we have a plan that works in the near term and also creates value for the long term?
4. The values and the standards of the organization. What are the expected behaviors? How do we want to treat each other? How do we want to act? What do we want to do about transparency? How can we have a safe environment where we really know what’s going on?

Good advice, I think. Check out the entire article at "Planes, Cars and Cathedrals."

How to Approach Social Media

One reason I think that some people are reluctant to engage social media is that they are concerned about not knowing the rules, not knowing how to allocate resources, and about making mistakes.

Previous blog articles have addressed some of the rules. (Check out: How Many 10 Commandments of Social Media Do You Need?) And others have addressed resource allocation and metrics.

But I haven't really addressed making mistakes. The fact is that everyone's going to make mistakes because social media is about experimenting to figure out what works. And "what works" is likely to be different for each organization (thus the many version of the social media 10 Commandments).

It's also worth reading "Put Ad on Web. Count Clicks. Revise." from the New York Times. The key point here is: Revise. While the article focuses on advertising, not PR, the point about looking at metrics and then revising approaches to determine what works is relevant to PR functions, too.

The numbers we're dealing with -- like click-throughs on Twitter -- may not be large numbers. But some argue that a positive mention from a trusted source via Twitter or a blog is worth as much as thousands of media impressions for ads. There are all sorts of things to experiment with, such as tools, services, approaches, etc. And it may take time to figure out the best approach for you.

So stop worrying about mistakes. Think about how you can experiment, gain knowledge and be more effective.

For a Good Look at How Book Publishing Has Changed Over the Years, Check out Joni Evan's NYT column

Since my first career after college was in book publishing, I found this Joni Evans column in the New York Times, "When Publishing Had Scents and Sounds," to be interesting. It looks at how technology changed the world of book publishing.

What I don't understand is why the Times chose to run it.

Only the 2nd-to-last paragraph actually deals with present-day issues.

But it did bring up memories. Like the time when Shirley Maclaine, who at the time was better known for her new-agey books than for her acting, called at Bantam Books, where I worked. She had just written about past-live regression. I answered the phone, took Shirley's message for the editor I worked with, and then, as the call was about to end, Shirley said, "Your voice sounds familiar. Have we met before?"

Not in this life, I wanted to tell her. As for meeting her in a past life, she'd know better than I.

The Prospect for Hyperlocal Continues to Look Good -- But can it capture the ad market?

As print media continues to shed reporters and readers, the hyperlocal continues to show potential. That's because while there will always be sources for national news, people still want local news.

The problem for marketers is that there may be too many hyperlocal sites online and those sites don't generate mass-market traffic, making for a very fragmented user base. Targeting hyperlocal blogs and sites can be a great way to generate coverage, but it takes more effort to reach the many hyperlocal sites, and those sites reach a smaller group than maligned print media.

In an interesting story, "Can Anyone Tap the $100 Billion Potential of Hyperlocal News?," Fast Company looks at the problem from an advertising perspective -- that's the $100B in question.

What's interesting about news by search engine is that it has enabled users to select the news that interests them, which is a far less worthy slogan than the Times' "All the news that's fit to print." (Will the Times have to update its slogan to "All the news that's fit to text?")

While a lot of people consider it to be better, news by search engine (NBSE) actually destroys substantial value. By way of example, the Boston Globe was worth $1.1B when the Times bought it a decade ago. But now the Times can't even give away the paper, despite the fact that it's the market leader, is nationally known, wins journalism awards, etc.

The bottom-line is that hyperlocal should survive, but it won't pick up all the advertising dollars that no longer go to print.

I'm not sure where that money will go, but I do know that's bad news for traditional journalism even as its practiced online. Fully researched journalism takes time, resources and money, and without subscription fees and without advertising support, only a few outlets will be able to maintain journalistic standards.

Some colleagues and clients have been talking about the implications of that. It is in the interest of PR functions that journalism maintains its credibility. I'm going to explore this further in future posts. Let me know what you think.

Marketing Tips from American Express -- Do they make sense for today's economy?

In an interview in BtoBObline, Marcy Shinder, VP of Brand Strategy and Marketing at American Express OPEN, offered up these tips (in a different format):

• A downturn is a good time to identify ways to transform a company.
• A lot of companies look at delivering better customer service as a differentiator. (For service organizations, this can be a challenge since your competitors are likely to be trying the same things. Instead, think about what improvements would deliver the most value.)
  
• Companies need to stay relevant. (In other words, think about the problems customers buy from you, and make sure that what you provide truly solves their problems.)
• Provide tangible value. (We have a client with a fascinating vision of the future of technology in their sector, but we've advised them to make that game-changing vision a secondary message because their first goal is to sell product. So they need to focus on ways they provide real value to their customers. A compelling vision of what's to come is good, but that doesn't always help customers when deciding to buy now instead of putting off the purchase for later.)
• Companies need to market differently from the day of the 30-second spot. They need to provide insight, inspiration and advice during every customer interaction.
  
• Companies need to answer what they can do for their customers.

Some good common sense advice, yet I'd bet a lot of companies don't follow up on this. Check out the complete article, "American Express' Shinder on marketing to small businesses," and let me know what you think. Do these tips makes sense? Will following them make a difference to customers and bring in new or incremental business?

Survey Results: How Do CMOs Feel They're Doing With Digital Marketing

During every new business meeting, clients ask about our experience with social media. Three years ago, only the occasional new business prospect asked that question. Today. we get worried if we don't get asked that question.

Yet despite being asked that question by every prospective client, there's often far less interest in actually conducting a digital marketing or social media marketing program, no matter what term you use.

I've anecdotally validated this by talking with colleagues at other agencies: When it comes to actually developing and implementing an integrated communications plan, many clients prefer to focus their PR/communications resources on traditional media. That happens even when, going into the presentations, the client has said that social media is important to them.

So I was interested when I came across a Heidrick & Struggles study that "found that the majority of senior marketing executives believe their companies are behind the curve when it comes to digital marketing."

Results from the Digital Marketing Standard: Executive Perspectives on Digital Marketing included:

• 60% said their companies “were behind the curve.
• 33% felt they hired/acquired or developed the internal talent to handle digital marketing – which means that two-thirds do not feel they have the right internal talent.

The main challenges to embracing digital marketing included:

• Legacy issues from an analog age.
• Bricks-and-mortar mentality.
• Lack of available resources to move quickly into the digital age.
  

Since Heidrick & Struggles is a recruiting company, its survey focused on hiring and developing the right talent. Which is why, a key insight for them was this: The problem for some companies is that the right hires will feel that digital marketing is perceived as 2nd place behind traditional marketing.

We've seen that, too. That social media is a lessor priority for some clients. Why?

According to a BrandWeek article summarized by G. Robert Bishop, a recruiter specializing in marketing hires, on his blog, The Marketing Recruiter:

“On a more granular level, the respondents rated marketing ROI, Web behavioral analyses and CRM as the most important parts of their digital marketing mix. Not many marketers thought that they were good at those functions at this point. Only 18 percent said they were “very satisfied” with their ROI analysis, only 13 percent said the same of their CRM program and 19 percent were happy with their search engine optimization.”

The need to benchmark digital marketing efforts is critical. In cleaning up my office the other day, I found lots of articles from 2006 about social media -- but things have changed so much since then that the articles were like faded 1960s color photos: more color than black-and-white photos but pale color representation by today's standards. The only point still relevant from one article I tossed into recycling: the need to develop metrics.

Three years -- and many social media paradigms later -- the challenge still facing CMOs remains this:

• Determining how to use social media/digital marketing to reach their customers.
• Developing ROI and other metrics to justify their digital marketing programs.

I'd say that's why CMOs feel like they're behind the curve.

Let me know what you think. You can also check out excellent summaries of a couple of articles about CMOs and digital marketing at Bishiops' blog, "CMOs And Digital Marketing Disconnect."