Corporateinklings

Being Switzerland...

Recently, I realized a dream. (OK, so maybe my dreams aren’t all that exciting.)  The thrill: I sat down with the new crop of industry analysts to talk about how they can engage with vendors. Yep, that’s right. They invited me to share insights and tips on how to make the most of relationships with vendors.

 How many times have I talked a client into NOT cancelling their contract because an analyst hasn’t covered them, won’t endorse them, refuses to share e-mail addresses of target end users with them?

I tell them: It takes time; you need to invest in the conversation outside the briefing; you need to listen and occasionally heed their advice, and always tell them when you do.  But this? This was a full 180° shift – now analysts are interested in hearing the other side of the story?  It was as if Obama’s message of empathy broke through in B2B. 

What did I tell them? It’s pretty simple, actually – despite the $35,000 renewals at stake.  Vendors have what you want. You have what they want. And quite honestly, you can both win. Figure out what the vendor – those talking heads who book you every hour on the hour – is motivated by. Be honest about what you can and can’t do. Invite their opinions. Give up something – insight, critique or an opportunity.  Disagree freely, and when you do, but share your reasoning. Take good care of any contacts they share.

Hmmm. Almost word-for-word what I counsel clients. A common ground, found. Will it matter? Who knows.  But finally I can tell my clients that at least one analyst firm is raising up a whole new team of players willing to listen – and that, my friends, is the key to conversations that actually work, and hopefully, pay off.

- By Susan Bassett

Grand Slams in Marketing: Does Your Website Help You Knock It Out of the Park?

While watching baseball at home and creating a website design recommendation for a freelance journalist looking to attract opportunities, my mind wandered for a bit. Suddenly it hit me – websites as marketing tools and baseball have a common theme. The goal for both is to win – whether we’re talking about a new job or a grand slam.   

Think of it this way. You are the batter. Your prospect is the pitcher. Pitchers are cagey and have lots of ways to strike you out (curveball, slider, change-up), they are quick and their action is targeted. Before going up to bat, you need to size up the pitcher. In the case of prospects – know what they want, what they need and how they are likely to react to your presence “at the plate”, i.e. your website.

Here are some tips to improve your performance at every ‘at bat’:

1. Have a clear, customer-centric message:  Your homepage must quickly spell out the business value you deliver.

2. Make contact information highly visible: Prospects deserve a quick and easy way to get more information from you. .

3. Create a call to action:  Engage visitors with a reason/incentive (an offer).

4. Optimize load time:  Flashy graphics and scripts are cool and groovy, but time is money and slow loads turn a prospect off faster than an automated customer service line.

5. Design for all Screen Resolutions and Browsers. Test, test and test again so that your site doesn’t shut any prospect out.  

6. Speed conversion: Landing page design with testimonials and a simple contact information form.

Follow these rules of the game to increase the chances of converting prospects to customers. And as all good baseball players know – practice makes perfect.  

   - Posted by Michael Flint

      Founder, Metropolis Creative

Michael Flint is a professional graphic designer, comic book enthusiast, twitterer, softball coach and beer brewer.  He founded Metropolis Creative in 1999.  Metropolis solves web, graphic brand, marketing and print design solutions . Michael has directed projects that include website design, direct mail, print collateral and branding initiatives for Emerson College, the World Society for the Protection of Animals, Intuit, Equity Office, Holly Cleaners and The Medical Foundation. Michael's speaking engagements include The Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Mass Health Data Consortium, and he's taught print and web design courses at Northeastern University and Bentley College. He has a BFA in Graphic Design from Rochester Institute of Technology and has won numerous graphic design awards.

Will the Real Murderer Please Stand Up?

  Someone is asleep on the copy desk at the NY Times – or maybe they’re looking for a new job. On Tuesday, they ran the courtroom story – and photo – of a bouncer accused of murdering a college student. The photo, which also ran in the Boston Globe, shows two men, both cleaned up, in suits. Both  paying attention. One’s black, one’s white. So who’s the lawyer? Who knows – the Times doesn’t say. It’s as if we should know. Or assume.

But go online, and it’s a different story: the caption has links, and identities are suddenly clear. So maybe the editors get a hall pass on this one. But there were still 1 million dead-wood readers left to draw their own conclusions.

   - Posted by Amy Bermar

CEO: Cooking Skills Required

“All of this authority is packed into a diminutive woman with large glasses who does not drive, type or cook…”

That’s what the NY Times had to say about Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization – who happens to be the single-most-powerful person charged with combating health epidemics. It did acknowledge that she may be among the most qualified people in the world to lead the global response to the threat of a pandemic flu.

Even if she can’t cook.

Ugh. The 1970s may have been fat and happy for newspapers, but they are over.  When pubs are this out of touch – maybe they deserve to be replaced.

   - Posted by Amy Bermar

A New Paradigm for Communicating for Action: H2H

The Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman “Bucket List” flick inspired me: I recently crossed #1 off my own life fulfillment list: Running the Boston Marathon –my first marathon.

Getting to the starting line wasn’t easy. I trained for five months in the brutal Boston winter – and committed to raise more than $5,000 to run the race in honor of cancer victims and patients.

I’ve never really fundraised before. Timing wasn’t great, with the economy making it much harder for everyone to part with money, even for a good cause. I wasn’t sure how to get started, but I knew I needed to reach more people than I could with phone calls and e-mails.

So, I took what I learned from using social media for clients. I kept a blog. I created a Facebook Group. I Tweeted about my training. I set up a personal Web site – updating it frequently, to boost my SEO rankings. I did e-mail blasts.

And like sales reps adding the “human touch,” I helped each donor understand how their support mattered.  I updated them on the latest breakthroughs at Dana-Farber, my training and eventually the 26.2 mile journey from Hopkinton and Boston.

It worked. The world of social media mashups got me donations from friends I hadn’t seen in years, some who live hours away - and from people I have never even met.

Bottom line: Social media is expanding. It’s just not for B2B, or B2C companies. The new model is H2H: Human to human. Whether running a marathon or launching a new product, social media is no longer an option….it’s required for success.

$5,500 dollars – and 4 hours, 2 minutes later, I reached my goals.  And I’m already looking forward to next year.

- Posted by Michael McDonough

The Little Voice Inside: Please Listen

This is a very different kind of post. It has nothing to do with companies, or blogs, or work. Two weeks ago, a friend took his life. Three hundred people showed up at the funeral, which doesn’t really mean much, in the end. This was a dear man, searching, like most of us are. He was 24, taught yoga, loved fire dancing, and he had more friends than he knew, or thought. The best way I can understand this decision he made, in solitude, is that he felt terribly, unbearably alone.

And mostly, we are never as alone as we think, especially in our worst moments. Someone, somewhere, wants to listen. You just need to ask someone to talk. If the person you pick doesn’t have the wisdom to listen, please pick someone else. Don’t go silent.

I certainly regret that I didn’t call him the morning I was thinking about him. I need to listen more to that tiny voice, which is so convenient to ignore.

   - Posted by Amy Bermar

Lousy PR on a Sunday Afternoon

 You never know who’s doing your PR for you – but more often than you want to think, it’s the person who answers the phone. The other day, I had to call the American Repertory Theater to ask for a favor. I’d bought an extra ticket for my mother-in-law, but for the wrong date, and I wanted a refund. In case you’ve been asleep for the past year, companies – much less non-profits – aren’t too thrilled about giving money back. And the ART actually says that tickets are final sale.

But I figured this is the customer’s era, and why not ask? Besides, I’d been a subscriber for a long time, and even donated a couple of times. So maybe someone would understand the value of customer loyalty – not to mention positive word of mouth – and cut me a break.

Not so much.

Cut to Sunday noon, call to the box office. “No, we don’t give refunds.”  I explain all of the above, nicely. Box office: “We don’t give refunds.”

She didn’t ask my name. Didn’t get any details. Didn’t even punt it to a call-back from someone else, maybe next week, maybe never.

I could have blasted it on Twitter, which sometimes works. In this case, I emailed the management. Truthfully, I was expecting nothing. After all, I figured that lousy attitude came from the top. It gets better, though:  I got a call Monday at 9:30 a.m., along with an apology and a willing ‘let’s make an exception’ act of management savvy. And another email at 11:30 that night from one of the big kahunas.

The lesson? Every employee, anywhere, can screw up a customer relationship.  Just hope you’re lucky enough to hear about it.

The money here? I’m in for another year of subscribing, giving ART 10X the money they refunded.  Not to mention the price of goodwill gained. As for the person who botched the first call? As she might say, it’s not my problem.

   - Posted by Amy Bermar

Post Awesome Placement Depression (PAPD): Social Media is the Cure

A couple weeks ago, I had the thrill of a great – no, absolutely perfect placement.  On-message, no competitors included and two or three quotes that I tacked on my fridge (not kidding and yes, my wife thinks I’m crazy). 

It was a long time coming. Months of back-and-forth with the blogger finally paid off. A brief celebration with the client and the team, and then the client asked… “so what’s next?”

That’s when it kicked in: PAPD. A completely made-up disorder but PR professionals understand exactly what I am talking about.  It’s that empty feeling you get a couple days after a big placement appears – when the traction of the coverage has faded and readers stop commenting or asking questions.

This time I fought back. No PAPD would take the shine out of a stellar piece of coverage (after all, it was fridge worthy!), so here’s how I kept the article alive:

1. Posted it on Digg, Reddit, Del.ic.ous:  Millions of readers turn to news feed services like Digg, Reddit and Del.ic.ous to see what the most popular stories of the day are.  The more Diggs, the more votes, the more comments = less PAPD.
2. Tweeted about it on Twitter: When the original piece went live, I tweeted.  When a new comment was posted, I tweeted.  When a new question was raised, I tweeted.  I brought as many people into the discussion as I could.
3. Posted it on my Facebook, LinkedIn, and Friendfeed pages:  Contrary to popular opinion, I have friends.  And some of my friends have friends.   The net gets wider and wider and there’s no limit to how far your post can go...

Our client raised a great question (I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little nerve racking).  Yeah, it was a great piece of coverage, but there needs to be a pipeline of activity – just like in sales.  Using social media, I eliminated my PAPD symptoms.  The best part?  By promoting the hell out of the coverage I’d battled so hard for, the client got coverage that lasted longer and reached further than was once possible – and oh, yeah, I’ve got a metric on the fridge. 

   - Posted by Dan Brennan