In the latest example of finding media innovation where you’d least expect it, CBS is embedding a video player in a print ad in Entertainment Weekly.

The CBS foray into a print-digital alliance plays full-motion video at a crisp resolution. The ad, dubbed by CBS and partner Pepsi Max “the first-ever VIP (video-in-print) promotion,” works like one of those audio greeting cards.

Opening the page activates the player, which is a quarter-inch–thick screen seen through a cutaway between two pages concealing the larger circuit board underneath. The audio quality is equally good, but beware: There are no volume controls, and in a quiet environment, it’s quite loud. This is surely a intentional design feature, aimed at getting the attention of people nearby.

A nifty feature, and one cannot help wonder if this will produce the sort of Return on Marketing Investment advertisers would be looking for?

Check the video explaining a bit more.

This Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist.

For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com and http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com. Sorry that it all seems too Americanized and that some of the assumptions presented as facts may be disputable.

The Long Tail concept has found broad ground for application, research and emperimentation. Now, in FREE, he makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. From fora.tv

Please share your comments and - perhaps - your own experience here. If you have a similar case-study you would like to share with CMO’s around the world, please get in touch.

Powered by Sprite, Green Eyed World is an exclusive, one-of-a-kind social interactive show in which you get the chance to tell Katie what you think through simple vote and comments.

Green Eyed World is also the first show of its kind to integrate Facebook into YouTube so you can talk to friends about Katie’s adventures, share comments and vote from your Facebook profile. With 4 seasons slated to air until the end of the year, Green Eyed World can be embedded across all your fave social networks and goes with you on your iPhone or iPod Touch for anytime viewing.

Exciting format that just may work - but will it pay off for advertisers?

Apart from the lucky “casting” of Katie Vogel who seems nicely grounded and highly talented, the show is very well produced and - I am sure - will attract hoards of reality TV fans. The interactivity between Facebook and Youtube is a first and an interesting component. Now add to that the opportunity to communicate brand messages directly to the people involving themselves in the conversation. Nice, ehh?

While I do want to congratulate Sprite for being a first mover in this space, I am left wondering; “will the money invested here ever produce a reasonable Return on Marketing Investment?”

On the other hand, over time, I actually think it could. It definately stands a better chance of providing a Return on Marketing Investment than the sorry advertiser whom is going to pay Chelsea a ludicrously high sum of money to name the clubs stadium. But that, my dear reader, is an entirely different story.

End of October, I (Michael Leander) had the pleasure of training marketing representatives of some of the most important businesses in Cyprus.

Organized by RJTulip, the 2 day internet marketing for businesses workshop was the first for me in Cyprus. Seeing that the internet penetration rate is still “early days” in Cyprus compared to Northern Europe, I really did not know what to expect.

Looking outside in - when will we ever learn?
Researching websites of the companies taken part in the workshop, I saw examples of a little bit of everything. From the so-called “business card website” to full-blown well produced websites. And a lot inbetween.

I had planned for a workshop covering the basics with an emphasis on “getting started”. But businesses in Cyprus are no different than businesses elsewhere. Early adaptors obviously have quite a bit of experience and would expect something suitable to their experience and situation - whereas novices are more focused on acquiring hands-on knowledge. Judging from the evaluation, I believe I managed to provide a bit of relevant information to all delegates. (videos below)

But one thing stood out - as it always does; it seems that in Cyprus too companies tend to not put enough emphasis on the customers and prospects they are serving online. I often speak about two things in that respect, namely “the learnings of Kierkegaard” and “looking outside in”.
So take this learning with you, even if you do not want to read on:

If businesses anywhere want to succeed online, they must put the audiences they are serving first. Businesses must try to understand the buying process and align their selling process accordingly.

The Cyprus opportunity for internet marketing
My knowledge of Cyprus and its culture is very superficial. But I had the impression that utilizing the internet for business represents a great opportunity for companies based in Cyprus. And not merely for their domestic market, but quite so for the international markets they are serving.

In my own country, e-government has had a tremendous impact on the development of the online channel here. Interestingly e-government represents a golden opportunity for Cyprus. Yet it would seem that the government is not yet focused on creating a self-serviced environment for citizens and businesses alike.  Even if the upside in doing so are enormously interesting.

I was told that many businesses in Cyprus believe that that the internet is not a relevant channel until 2014-2015. Excuse me? Why would anybody think that?

Whether market leader or serious contender, businesses in less mature online markets, need to understand that there is always the chance of a smaller, more adept competitor will utilize the internet to kick the crap out of the established competition - merely by utilizing the internet to effectively atract and serve customers.   It has happened many times before, and it will happen again. (Barnes & Nobles, Brittanica Encyclopedia anyone?).

Oh, and the rating of my efforts. Well, I cannot help myself. So I have posted the evaluation below. The evaluation was done on a scale from 1 to 5 where 5 is highest. It would seem that I have to work on my helpfulness.

I am looking forward to come back to Cyprus next year to share my knowledge and talk about the opportunities for utilizing the internet and digital marketing for businesses.

Below are some videos relating to the 2 day internet marketing seminar in Cyprus on 29 and 30 October 2009.

Video 1: Testimonial by “Pambos” - Mr. Iacovou Charalambous of the largest appliance retailer in Cyprus

Video 2: Testimonials in Russian and English with Vadim Lozitskii of St. Chara Developers and Mikhail Pautov of publisher Vestnik Kipra

Video 3: Executive director Simon Aynedjian of GAP Vassilopoulos E-Media Ltd shares his thoughts after the internet marketing seminar in Cyprus.

Video 4: Ron Joron of RJTulip talking about his thoughts after the Michael Leander internet marketing for businesses workshop in Limassol. Was it practical. precise. professional?

–> More about RJTulip here
–> More about internet marketing seminar in Cairo, Egypt

Video 5: An exhausted Michael Leander briefly commenting on his experience following the internet marketing for businesses workshop

–> About Michael Leander here

A couple more videos will be posted soon including the infamous ultra short clip titled “Can I pass?”

Das kostenlose Web-Seminar findet am 19. November um 10.30 statt. Das Web-Seminar beantwortet Ihnen alle wichtigen Fragen, die das Marketing aufgrund der Gesetzesänderung stellen muss. Das sind z.B.

- Wollen Sie wissen, was das neue BDSG für Auswirkungen auf Ihre Neukunden-Gewinnung und Stammkunden-Kommunikation hat?

- Wie verführen Sie den Kunden zu einer Reaktion und holen dabei auch eine recht-wirksame Opt-in ein? Sowie offline wie auch online?

- Suchen Sie nach Tipps und Tricks, wie Sie die Opt-Ins viel einfacher erhalten als bisher gedacht?

- Do’s and Dont’s - die Sie sofort umsetzen können.

In unserem Webinar am 19 November um 10:30 Uhr zeigen wir konkret anhand vieler Beispielen (aus BtB und BtC) auf, welche Herausforderungen das neue BDSG für Unternehmen mit sich bringt - und vor allem: wie man diese Probleme löst.

Jedes Beispiel wird aus Sicht des Vertriebs bzw. Marketing beschrieben und im Anschluss einer rechtlichen Beurteilung unterzogen.

So erhalten Sie Tipps und Tricks, wie Sie rechtssicher Ihre Interessenten- und Kundendaten qualifizieren. Dies ist die Basis für den dauerhaften Dialog mit Ihrer Zielgruppe - und damit die Basis für Ihren Erfolg.

Referenten sind:

Georg Blum, Geschäftsführer CommunDia und Mitglied im Vorstand des Deutscher Dialogmarketing Verbands e.V.
Dr. Markus Klinger von Kleiner Rechtsanwälte
Florian Haarhaus, Geschäftsführer Alterian Deutschland

Moderator sind:

Moderator des Web-Seminar ist der international anerkannte Permission-Marketing-Experte Michael Leander Nielsen. Das Web-Seminar wird Ihnen präsentiert von Alterian.

Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? This video details out social media facts and figures that are hard to ignore. This video is produced by the author of Socialnomics.

Michael Leander spoke to Drayton after the completion of one week of EADIM training in London. Start the video to see what Drayton Bird had to say.

More information about Drayton Bird at www.draytonbird.com and about EADIM at www.eadim.com

Michael Leander interviewed Oystein Svarod at the lovely Aker Brygge in Oslo, Norway. Play the video to learn more.

More information about Oystein Svarod here.

This web seminar aims to give you the latest trends about using video to market your products and services and provide you with some valuable tips, tricks and insights you need in order to include video as part of your marketing and promotion mix.

The web seminar on January 12, 2010 at 14:30 Amsterdam time | 13:30 London time | 08:30 New York time, will cover;

Survey and trends: We will reveal the results from our recent survey about the usage of video in marketing and talk about how you can ensure a large viewership of your videos
Case studies: You will see examples of B2C and B2B companies whom have successfully applied video in marketing and tell you how you can do the same
Tips and tricks: Steffen Kierkegaard will give you the video-pros insight to how you can create your own videos and make them work - even at a no or low budget.

You can attend for free if you hurry.

About the speakers:

Michael Leander is a direct and integrated marketing expert and speaker. He has actively tested video in social media over the past two years.

Steffen Kierkegaard is a video marketing specialist.

See what Edward has to say. And please do pardon my childish playing around with the features I’ve recently discovered in my new video-editing tool. I just cannot help myself. On the other hand, I would go ballistic in a nice way if you were to copy some of my outstandingly unique artistic impressions

Right after we taped the video, Weatherall (now is that a British name if you ever heard one?) blew me away. In fact I must have looked like someone whom just saw somebody do a reverse Salchow while holding the entire collection of Fabergé Eggs on her chest.

He suddenly started speaking Swedish. Turns out that Edward is half Swedish - which does not make him a lesser person at all (even if their national football team won’t make it to South Africa (he, he)

More about Edward Weatherall here:

Edward is a regular speaker at industry events as well as a founding member of the IAB email marketing council and an active member of the IDM and B2B marketing councils.  Over the last six years, Concep, leaders in marketing technology and communications services, have consulted with global organisations on the successful implementation of effective digital and email marketing strategies.

Concep were the Digital Acquisition winners at the IDM Business Performance Awards 2008, Highly Commended as Marketing Technology Providers at the Legal Marketing Awards 2008 and runner for best use of email at the B2B Marketing Awards 2008.

•    CRM-Daten müssen mit Transaktions- und Response-Informationen sowie Kennzahlen aus der Business Intelligence integriert werden.
•    Vom aktions- zum prozessgetriebenen Marketing: Wie Sie das Kampagnenmanagement stärker am Kundenlebenszyklus orientieren.
•    Die Einbeziehung aller Kommunikationskanäle für ein verbessertes Targeting.

Dieses Webinar zeigt auf, welche Schritte auch unter engen Budget- und Ressourcenbedingungen erfolgreich in eine hochindividuelle und damit deutlich effektivere Multi-Channel-Kundenkommunikation führen.

Das Webinar wird durch eine 15-minütige Demo von Alterian ergänzt, die beispielhaft aufzeigt, wie Transaktions- und Response-Informationen sowie Business-Intelligence Kennzahlen in der Summe genutzt werden können, um die Zielgruppensegmentierung zu verfeinern und die Konversionsraten zu erhöhen.

Über den Referenten:

Robert Harnischmacher (45) ist Philosoph, Wirtschaftsjournalist und Werbetexter. Er gründete 1994 die auf Direktmarketing und E-Mail-Kommunikation spezialisierte Werbeagentur Publicare Marketing Communications in Frankfurt am Main.

Christoph Cuquemel ist als Business Solutions Consultant für die technische Beratung  und Unterstützung der Partner und Endkunden von Alterian Deutschland zuständig. In den letzten Jahren hat er als Projektmanager mehrere Implementierungen von E-Mail Marketing Softwarelösungen in CRM Umgebungen geleitet und betreut, sowie strategische Online-Marketing-Projekte als Consultant umgesetzt.

His name is Chris Catchpole and Michael Leander hooked up with him at a café near Liverpool Street Station in London. Watch to learn what Chris has to say about direct response creativity and more.

You can reach Chris here at Domain London, at his Twitter account or his personal website - at the latter you can also take a peak at his impressive portfolio.

Bill Whittle points out the dangers of branding an ideology with an icon and how, perhaps, the powerful symbol will be used against the very man it built up

Wer im Internet Kunden akquiriert kennt das Problem: Viele Besucher, jedoch nur magere Conversion Rates. Dabei ist es recht einfach, mehr Besucher zu Kunden zu machen. Es kommt auf den richtigen Einsatz der Conversion Elemente an.

In diesem Webseminar lernen Sie, wie Sie die Conversion Elemente auch auf Ihrer Website treffsicher einsetzen und dadurch die Effektivität Ihres Online Investments steigern..

Ideal für alle, die:
- Online mehr verkaufen wollen
- Mehr Kundenanfragen benötigen
- Online Marketing Kampagnen effektiver steurn wollen
- Optimierungen oder Relaunches planen

Kai Radanitsch, Spezialist für Conversion-Optimierung, zeigt Ihnen, wie sie die Wertschöpfung Ihrer Online Investments steigern können und stellt Ihnen eine Vielfalt an sehr effektiven Techniken dazu vor. Sein Web-Seminar findet am 13. Oktober 2009 statt

Bei schneller Buchung können Sie gratis teilnehmen.

Sehen Sie,

- wie Sie mehr Nutzer zur Bestellung Ihres Newsletters animieren, mehr Anfragen anregen und Ihre Online Verkäufe erhöhen.
- was Sie bei der Erstellung effektiver Landingpages beachten müssen
- wie sich die strategische Ausrichtung von Text, Bildern und Formularen auswirkt
- überraschende Beispiele von Websites und Landingpages
- wie Sie Ihre Online Marketing Kampagnen systematisch effektiver gestalten

Dieses Web-Seminar zeigt Ihnen, wie Sie mit sehr geringem Aufwand bessere Ergebnisse erzielen können. Es geht dabei, wie Herr Radanitsch so schön sagt, „nicht um den Kauf neuer Möbel sondern um die Umstellung derer, die Sie schon haben.“

Programm für dieses Web-Seminar (Online-Seminar):

1. Einführung von Michael Leander, Fokus Integrated
2. Taktiken zur Conversion Rate Steigerung mit Kai Radanitsch, ebusinesslab GmbH
   
3. Fragen und Antworten
   

Dieses Seminar ist am 13. Oktober um 14.00 Uhr auch in englischer Sprache erhältlich.

Über den Referenten:

Kai Radanitsch gehört zu einer neuen Generation von eBusiness Beratern, die für Ihre Arbeitsweise als CHIFF bekannt sind: Clever, High Quality, Innovative, Friendly and Fun. Diese Berater haben starken akademischen Hintergrund und sind mit dem Internet aufgewachsen. Kennen die dunklen wie die lukrativen Seiten des Mediums. Haben viel ausprobiet, sind oftmals gescheitert und haben unglaubliche Erfolge gefeiert.

Kai Radanitsch ist Diplom-Informatiker und eBusiness Berater. Seit über 14 Jahren berät er Unternehmen wie Red Bull, Nokia, T-Mobile, Renault in ihrer eBusiness Strategie.

Web Usability und Interface Design gepaart mit wirtschaftlichem Hintergrund bilden die Basis für lukrative Pricing Strategien und Wertschöpfungsmodelle der strategischen Weboptimierung.

Nach 10 Jahren praktischer Erfahrung gründete Kai Radanitsch eBusinessLab. Eine Beratungsfirma speziell auf die Bedürfnisse von Online Marketing und eBusiness Managern abgestimmt. Mit einem umfangreichen Toolset von praxiserprobten Managementmethoden, effektiven Strategien und psychologischen Taktiken werden die Websites systematisch optimiert um die Gewinne abzusichern und die Profitabilität weiter auszubauen.

If you are like most marketers, you want to optimize your website and landing pages to convert the highest possible number of people to react.

Fact 1: Generating traffic is becoming increasingly expensive. Even small increases in conversion can improve your campaign ROI.
Fact 2: You can increase your website or landing page effectiveness by 5% to 25% easily by applying a set of proven techniques
Fact 3: This seminar will give you direction fast

European conversion optimization and usability expert Kai Radanitsch will introduce you to a number of highly effective conversion techniques at this webinar on October 13, 2009.

You can attend for free if you hurry.

You will hear about

- how to improve your conversion rates for newsletter sign-up, sales, registrations, downloads and more
- things you need to consider in order to create the most effective landing page flow
- the impact of the right copy, images and forms
- a few highly surprising test results
- how to get the most from your advertising spend by increasing your conversion efficiency

This webinar will show you how to get better results from a very small investment. As Mr. Radanitsch puts it “this is not about buying new furniture, but re-arranging what you already have”

In the video below you can hear an introduction from the speaker

This web seminar is also available in the German language on October 13 at 10:30 CET

About the speaker:

Kai Radanitsch is a Web Optimization Specialist with 14 years hands-on experience in usability, interface design and economic eBusiness topics such as pricing strategies, revenue modeling and behavioral targeting.

At previous webinars his presentations were rated outstanding by attendees from more than 20 countries.

He holds a master degree in Computer Science and has international experience in web optimization having worked with clients such as Red Bull, T-Mobile, Renault or Nokia.

After 10 years of experience in leading positions of web agencies, he founded eBusinessLab, a consultancy firm specially addressing online marketing- and eBusiness managers by providing them with strategies and tactics to improve their web profitability. He is also associated to Fokus Integrated.

(Peytz & Co takes part in the FEDMA Pan European Email Marketing Benchmark)

Every Email Service Provider offers its customers a “Unique Open Rate” figure. However, different methods are being used to produce the number, making it difficult to compare results. Newer e-mail clients are making the open rate increasingly difficult to measure correctly. The result is that the “Unique Open Rate” figures are both inaccurate and incomparable.

The Danish Email Service Provider (ESP) “Peytz & Co.” has developed a new method to calculate the unique open rate. The Peytz Open Rate (POR) is used by major Scandinavian media and companies, providing these companies with far more accurate figures than previously.

Unique Open rate is loosing value

The reason why the Unique Open rate has decreased in recent years is well known. Outlook and numerous other off- and online e-mail clients have introduced a “show images” button in email clients, resulting in images in e-mails only being shown when an individual user specifically requests to view the images.

While this functionality offers the users faster email download speeds and increases security, it also blocks the only method of notifying the sender whether an e-mail has been opened or not. This notification is handled by a small gif in every e-mail sent by mass-mailing systems. When an e-mail is opened, the gif is called from a server and that call is measured. We call this gif the “counting-gif”. By assigning one counting-gif for each sent newsletter, the ESP can calculate exactly how many different e-mail recipients have opened the newsletter. This number is referred to as “Unique opened e-mails.”

However, this massive blocking of images in emails has resulted in a drastic decline of the “Unique opened e-mail” figures, regardless of whether the percentage of people actually opening the mails has remained constant.

The bottom line is that nobody really knows how many people have opened your emails. The unique open rate tells you how many have AT LEAST opened them. But as it does not include those that have opened the mail without viewing images - it will always be incorrect and lower than it should be.

Three known numbers and one secret one

The total number of opened e-mails includes:

1 Unique opened e-mails showing the counting-gif
2 Unique opened e-mails NOT showing the counting-gif

The problem is that the second number is un-measurable. The second number is the hidden one.

Now, any ESP can measure three numbers accurately:

1 Unique opened e-mails showing the counting gif.

3 Unique clicked links deriving from e-mails showing the counting-gif
4 Unique clicked links deriving from e-mails NOT showing the counting-gif

When reporting the amount of clicks in e-mails to clients some ESP only use
3 Unique opened e-mails showing the counting gif
while others add the number of undeniably opened e-mails, deriving from
4 Unique clicked links from e-mails NOT showing the counting-gif

Adding these two numbers increases the numbers of opened e-mails, and thereby the Unique Open Rate. But the two different methods make the results incomparable.

Calculating the Peytz Open Rate

The “Peytz Open rate” uses all three numbers and adds a third, estimated number.

We will use an example of a campaign sent to 100.000 e-mail addresses.

In the example the ESP has counted:
100.000 sent e-mails
30.000 opened e-mails showing the counting-gif
3.000 unique clicked links from e-mails showing the counting-gif
2.000 unique clicked links from e-mails NOT showing the counting-gif.

We now compare the relationship between unique opened e-mails showing the counting-gif and unique clicked links deriving from e-mails showing the counting-gif.

3.000 clicks from 30.000 opened

In this example, the relationship is 1:10 - so 1 out of 10 readers clicked on a link in the email.

Then we make an assumption. We assume that people behave in the same way, regardless ofwhether images are shown or not shown in their e-mails.

This assumption can obviously not be true for e-mails that only contain images (but these e-mails usually get caught by most spamfilters anyway). The assumption is obviously always true for e-mails containing only text, like really serious newsletters. And for most e-mail campaigns the truth is somewhere in between. As we have no knowledge of any scientific studies in this area, this is a pure assumption based on our experience and track record in this market.

Our assumption makes it possible to calculate the number of e-mails opened NOT showing the counting.gif

2.000 clicks equalling 20.000 opened (1:10)

Tadah! The secret number is revealed. Based on assumption and math.

The “Peytz Open rate” is then the total number of measured and estimated opened e-mail (30.000 plus 20.000) equalling 50.000 divided by the total number of sent e-mails, multiplied by a hundred:
(50.000/100.000)*100 = 50

The traditional “Unique open rate” is the total number of measured opened e-mail (30.000) divided by the total number of sent e-mails, multiplied by a hundred:
(30.000/100.000)*100 = 30

The “Peytz Open Rate” in this example almost doubles the number of opened mails and gives customers a far more realistic overview of the reach of their message.

E-mail based newsletters are becoming an increasingly important marketing tool for many companies - and receiving inaccurate statistics can result in strategic marketing mistakes that could have been avoided.

Durham, NC, Düsseldorf, den 03.09.2009, von Sebastian Paulke - Social Web Medien und Anbieter von Social Web Marketing-Technologie dürfen sich nach einer aktuellen Befragung von 511 Top-Marketingverantwortlichen im Auftrag der American Marketing Association in den kommenden fünf Jahren auf ein starkes Marktwachstum freuen - die Befragten wollen ihre Investments in Social Web-Medien und -Aktivitäten von derzeit 3,5 % des Gesamtmarketingbudgets auf 13,7 % in 2014 steigern. Im Fokus der Budgetumschichtungen liegen demnach vor allem Social Networking (65 Prozent der Befragten), Video und Photosharing (52 Prozent) und Blogging (50 Prozent), weil die Unternehmen sich davon bessere Markenentwicklung, Neukundengewinnung, Produkteinführungen und Kundenbindung sowie bessere Einsichten in die Märkte und damit das Kundenverhalten versprechen.

Nach Ansicht von Experten greifen Investments in Social Web-Marketing jedoch nur, wenn Unternehmen auch in der Lage sind, die Folgen ihrer Aktivitäten in Web und Social Web genau zu monitoren, zu analysieren und systematisch zu steuern: „Im Gegensatz zu den klassischen Medien kann der Verbraucher im Internet und ganz besonders in der Social Web-Welt sofort reagieren und die Markenkommunikation selber aktiv mit gestalten,” erläutert Florian Haarhaus, Deutschlandleiter von Alterian, dessen Unternehmen weltweit über 1.000 Marken mit webbased Dialogmarketing Services und -Technologie unterstützt. „Das Social Web wird dadurch für Unternehmen, die diese Informationen erfassen können, zu einer regelrechten Daten-Mine, die wertvolle Informationen für die Gestaltung aller online- und offline-Marketingaktivitäten liefert, ohne in die Persönlichkeitsrechte der Akteure im Social Web einzugreifen.”

Robert Harnischmacher, Geschäftsführer von Publicare, dessen Online-Marketing-Agentur namhafte Konzerne und große Agenturen unterstützt, sieht in der Kopplung der Dialogmarketingstrategien mit laufenden Social Web-Analysen einen zentralen Erfolgsfaktor für webbasierte Marketingkampagnen: „Nur Unternehmen, die ihre Erkenntnisse aus der Online-Kundeninteraktion laufend in einen maßgeschneiderten Marketingmix einfließen lassen, werden mittelfristig die Gestaltungshoheit über ihre Marke behalten.”

Zudem profitierten die Unternehmen dank Social Web Monitoring von höherer Datenqualität, die direkt der Präzision und Relavanz ihrer Kampagnen zugute kämen: „Die aus dem Social Web abzuleitenden Informationen über eine Marke können, wenn sie in einer integrierten Dialogmarketingplattform mit den vorhandenen Kundendaten angereichert werden, wertvolle Hinweise für die Zielgruppensegmentierung liefern. Das sorgt für eine relevantere Kundenansprache und minimiert den Kostenüberhang, der durch Streuverluste entsteht”, so Agenturchef Harnischmacher.

I was so positively surprised today that I just had to share this story with you. It does relate to marketing. In fact it relates to marketing in a big way.

Having worked around the clock for weeks, trying to catch up with a few too many overdue tasks and prepare quite a few workshops, speeches and training sessions, I decided to test my multi-tasking capabilities. I sent a few emails to potential speakers for a conference - while simultaneously thinking about a presentation I have to do next week.  (I actually managed to do both things at the same time  I think my wife will be proud of me.)

I was especially interested in attracting one particular persons email address. Namely that of the hugely successsful Air Asia founder, co-owner, CEO and multi millionaire Tony Hernandes (It is Tony on the picture to the). Surprisingly, getting a hold of Tony’s email address turned out to be a matter of typing a few characters in a search-engine.

10 years ago i wouldn’t have dared writing someone as successful as Tony.
But today I did - thinking “he’s got his email address out there,probably monitored by an army of PA’s - with a bit of luck a PA will address the matter with Mr. Hernandes and get back to me and that’s perfectly ok“. So I sent the email to him.

I did not expect a reply
BUT to my surprise Tony Hernandes personally answered my email less than 20 minutes after I sent it. On a Saturday for crying out load.

Now there’s the first lesson for other CEO’s or anyone else whom find herself in a power position in this day and age. Read on for more lessons.
I’ve known about Air Asia for some years having considered flying with them on a number of occasions  - but had never known the actual story of how the Air Asia success came about until a few months ago. The story is an impressive one indeed. And it is a very inspirational one.

The insanely impressive success of Air Asia
The Air Asia success is one that I bet any marketer can learn from, not to mention airline executives in Europeand elsewhere. If you follow some of the links below you can learn more a bit about  this (kind-of) from rags-to-riches tale.

After scanning a few articles, I got the impression that Air Asia have developed a unique personality, a remarkable culture and are managing staying true to who they are.  In other words; their secret (which obviously is no longer a secret) is an extremely strong brand DNA with a minimum of dysfunctional cells.

And hey - that is difficult. Delivering or even overdelivering consistently at The Moment of Truth is what we are all struggling to achieve, isn’t it?

But Air Asia seemingly demonstrate an outstanding execution - and in areas where so many others have failed before them. For instance, did you know that AIr Asia are on time with 83% of their flights? That’s quite an accomplishment in the industry.

Now - and please do keep in mind that I am no branding expert -  I have convinced myself that I do understand how difficult it is to deliver a consistent (great) brand experience across multiple customer touchpoints. And it seems that Air Asia are doing just that - piloted by Tony Hernandes.

So how did Tony build this success? And what does that have to do with a fast paced email correspondance between Tony Hernandes and Michael Leander?

Air Asia is build on an open, friendly company culture. An internal culture where anything apparently is possible (check their “so you want to become a Pilot program). So Tony is merely doing what so many other CEO’s still haven’t grasped; he is acting the way he would like his team to react. Answering an email promptly from a complete stranger is part of what Air Asia is all about. An open and connected company.
An airline brand - low cost or not - that understand that even small insignifant experiences can make a difference. A modern brand aware of the power of recommendation. A mark that understand that it takes 10, 15, 25 (can’t remember the number) good experiences to make up for one bad.

I am no journalist and hence will not attempt to write a long article, but merely point you to other articles written by Tony Hernandes. Click the pictures to read more. I am sure you will be inspired.

Once you are done clicking - think about how your company is doing today and how you would like your organisation to prosper in the future.
Can you apply some of the principles Tony has applied at Air Asia?
Do you think it will make a difference whether or not your CEO, your head-honcho shows people - no matter how important they are - the courtesy of replying to their letters? Do you think you can apply the same faith in people - regardless of background, current training and competencies - that Air Asia have in their people allowing the company to build, grow, improve based largely on the motivation of their employees?

<– Hiring without prejudice, click the picture and don’t get confused

<– Work directly under me, using “new media” to recruit people with a direct mail to Tony Hernandes

< — Showing emotions in public, the dream is coming true (a Panangite is a person from Penang)

<– Anybody - yes anybody - can become a pilot

<– Wrong shirt? Nope, Tony staying true to himself

BUT WAIT - THERE’S MORE

Air Asia on innovation and creatitiy: http://www.tonyfernandesblog.com/main.php/2009/01/30/innovation

and this one you do not want to miss;

Is Singapore better than us and why?

Is Tony on Twitter, you ask?
Of course he is, and he is on Facebook too. But I am quite satisfied that I can send him an email and expect a reply. I expect he would reply to serious direct twitter messages as well.

Is Air Asia handling their direct and interactive marketing communication better than other airlines?
I don’t know, but I care. So I am going to find out. I wouldn’t be surprised if Air Asia will prove that they are able to deliver relevant, personalized messages in a timely fashion. Or at least be much better at their email marketing communication than the competition (which by the way is appaling at best). I’ll update you on that once I’ve done my research.

Tony , I’ll shoot the “Thanks my man” right back at you: Thanks for the inspiration.

And finally, if you haven’t been to Malaysia - where Air Asia has it’s headquarter - now is a good time to go. In fact, why not check Air Asia’s flights from London to KL. The address is www.airasia.com

If you’re struggling to makes sense of the possibilities and threats in the social media space as well as the many monitoring tools, this webinar will provide the much needed direction.

It takes place on Tuesday October 6 at 14:00 CET (Berlin) / 13:00 London

You book your free “seat” here

This free webinar will help you understand:
- Which objectives to consider when defining your social media monitoring (SMM) strategy
- What types of tools are available
- How to make sense of the data that is gathered
- The ROI and benefits of social media monitoring

Real-world examples from companies like Domino’s Pizza and Tropicana will demonstrate how they apply Social media monitoring to grow their business and avoid disasters.

Why attend?
Online consumer conversations offer companies the opportunity to realize increased customer satisfaction & loyalty, shortened sales & product development cycles, expanded markets, competitive insight & more.

By participating you will gain an understanding of the potential that social media monitoring offers and how to build a strong foundation from which you can start applying it in your own organization.

This session is presented by Connie Bensen, Community Strategist at Alterian.
Connie Bensen is a leading authority on cultivating online communities and contributes to best practices for this emerging role. She also provides mentorship and inspires others to pursue this new career. Connie is the Community Strategist at Techrigy, an Alterian Company.

She is also a 2009 Fellow with the Society of New Communications Research and speaks at leading social media conferences.

Connie blogs at CommunityStrategist.com, & Techrigy.com. She has previously worked with Network Solutions, Inc and ACD Systems. Prior to joining ACD Systems, Connie spent 9 years on the brick and mortar side of community building in public library administration, marketing & PR.

The free marketing web seminar on October 6, 2009 is moderated by Michael Leander - a recognized direct and interactive marketing authority.

Have you ever wondered if simple tools and techniques exists that will help you increase the number of leads you can attract?

Are you often faced with the daunting tasks of having to deliver more qualified leads to your sales team, but with less money?

Would you like to learn what the most successful marketers do to attract a continous flow of qualified leads with an efficient marketing budget?

Join this web seminar on September 30 for free

A highly experienced B2B marketer, and an authority in the online lead acquistion space, Mr. Martin Meyer-Gossner will share with you:

- how to set up an effective lead generation program: “3 steps to prepare before you start!”
- education on the 3-lead types model for lead generation
- explain ways how to communicate your key lead generation message efficiently
- education on defining the 3-lead types funnel
- different payment models for lead acquisition offered by online publishers offers
- share and evaluate case studies
- provide valuable advice for starting your lead generation program immediately after the web-seminar

This highly valuable, hands-on web seminar on september 30, 2009 is being offered strictly on a first-come, first-serve basis. It’s adviceable to book your ticket right now.

About Mr. Martin Meyer-Gossner

Martin Meyer-Gossner is a co-founder of silicon.de, one of the leading b2b IT decision maker websites in Germany and holds responsibility for the product in terms sales and marketing at CBS Germany GmbH (former CNET Networks Deutschland GmbH).

Martin has accompanied loads of lead generation campaigns from the big IT companies in the tech industry.

His highly popular bi-lingual blog (German/English) blogs about marketing, sales and strategic web-business @ www.thestrategyweb.com

Webseminar am 24 September um 10:30 Uhr CET

Messen auch Sie schon die Erfahrungen Ihrer Kunden?

Möchten Sie erfahren, wie Sie den Wert der Kundenerlebnisse steigern können, indem Sie bewährte und hoch wirkungsvolle Methoden anwenden?

Hat Ihr Unternehmen ein hohes Volumen an Kundenanfragen, sei dies übers Telefon, die Webseite oder in persönlichen Beratungscentern?

Möchten Sie erfahren, wie andere Unternehmen eine signifikante Verbesserung von Kundenzufriedenheit, Kundenerlebnissen und Kundenloyalität erreicht haben, nachdem sie eine hoch wirkungsvolle Befragungsmethode implementiert haben?

Interessieren Sie sich dafür, wie Sie mit Live-Kundenbefragungen die Kundenabwanderung reduzieren können?

Wenn Sie zumindest eine der obenstehenden Fragen mit „ja” beantwortet haben, sollten Sie es nicht versäumen, an unserem 70-minütigen Web-Seminar über folgende Themen teilzunehmen:

- Überblick über die gängigsten Methoden zur Messung der Kundenzufriedenheit
- Fallbeispiele mit greifbaren Ergebnissen
- Zukunftstrends von Methoden zur Messung der Kundenerlebnisse und wie Sie Ihre Ausgaben für die Markt- und Kundenforschung steuern können.

Der Moderator - Fredrik Abildtrup, TeleFaction - ist ein erfahrener Experte auf dem Gebiet des Customer Experience Managements.

Hier eine kurze Zusammenfassung über Fredrik Abildtrups Werdegang:

Fredrik Abildtrup ist derzeit der CEO bei TeleFaction - ein Unternehmen, das sich auf Kundenloyalitäts-, Kundenzufriedenheits- und Kundenbindungs-Konzepte spezialisiert hat. Fredrik und sein Team unterstützen Unternehmen in ganz Europa indem sie ihnen greifbare Resultate in den Bereichen Kundenzufriedenheit, Kundenbindung und Kundenrückgewinnung liefern.

In diesem Web-Seminar wird er Ihnen aufzeigen, wie Live-Messungen zur Steigerung der Kundenloyalität und zur Reduzierung der Kundenabwanderungsquote eingesetzt werden können. Dabei werden Fallbeispiele von Unternehmen aus der Telekommunikations-, Finanzdienstleistungs-, Banken- und Versicherungs-Branche aufgezeigt, die ein hohes Volumen an Kundenanfragen haben.

Bevor Fredrik Abildtrup zu TeleFaction kam, war er bei T-Systems - einer Tochtergesellschaft der Deutschen Telekom - als Divisionsleiter tätig. Er ist Absolvent der Kopenhagen Business School mit einem Abschluss in Internationalem Marketing und Management. Zudem hat er an der Universität St. Gallen in der Schweiz über das CEMS-Programm den Master in International Business gemacht.

(Alterian takes part in the FEDMA Pan European Email Marketing Benchmark)

Strategic targeting and better accuracy through customer value segmentation and measurement assists in identifying the right types of potential and current customers to work with — and waiting for the feedback can even capture the same drama of a reality television show in the process.

High-Stakes Gambling
During the first season of “The Apprentice” there was an episode that involved two teams that headed to Atlantic City where they were responsible for registering gamblers at the ‘Trump Taj Mahal’ Resort. The task was to lure gamblers to the casino by creating a new and unique game of chance for customers to play, and the team that brought in the most money won. The team that won registered 776 players, while the losing team curiously registered 1,337! The successful formula of the winning team included an excellent decision to target the casino VIP line (those looking to play baccarat and the like), which brought them $17,807 more than the opposing team.

This is a classic case of quality over quantity (ergo the less-is-more approach). By targeting a higher-value group, the winning team was able to secure larger order sizes (gambling transactions); and if this task continued beyond the boundary of the contest they might have been able to further justify the future value of each customer. It was an excellent decision and intuitive assessment of customer value marketing and management in practice.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
In marketing, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the present value of the future cash flows attributed to the customer relationship. Use of customer lifetime value as a marketing metric tends to place greater emphasis on customer service and long-term customer satisfaction, rather than on maximizing short-term sales.
CLV can be calculated by evaluating items such as the churn rate, the cost of retaining and servicing the customer and the revenue generated by the customer. Assigning a potential total monetary figure to a customer is a useful metric for marketers when evaluating the cost of customer acquisition. The complexity and uncertainty surrounding customer relationships obviously makes it impossible to make an entirely accurate estimate, but CLV is a good starting point when aligning strategy and resources to identified customer segments.

Where there are a small number of people that drive most of the business, as in travel and leisure (or gaming, in the forgoing case), customer lifetime value is particularly useful-i.e., where there are a disproportionate distribution of transactions compared with the rest of the customer universe.
The less-is-more approach is the preferred way to operate a service-oriented business, but this also has to take into consideration the buying cycle of the customer being courted and the payback period for that interaction. Firms with cash-flow problems or a small war chest tend to rely on whatever comes in the door to accommodate making payroll, which can lead to dire consequences down the road.

Marketing One-Ups
Perhaps more often than marketers would like to admit-under pressure to acquire more customers, or create revenue for the next quarter- they execute campaigns based on company fiscal requirements, to the detriment of the real needs of the customer.

Especially emails are often sent to all customers upon the release of a product in the hopes that ‘casting a wide net’ will catch more leads simply through sheer volume of communications sent. The growth of email marketing has led to an increase in the number of communications sent to customers, due to ease of execution and low-cost of implementation. Ironically, omitting to apply the rigor of established direct marketing principles to online marketing, such as testing, measurement and relevancy of content, results in less leads as customers increasingly unsubscribe, report emails as spam or implement their own spam filters, and use multiple email addresses to guard their privacy.

While a company has to make money to be viable, if it elicits one-time order customers it is not going to be viable for very long. That is why it’s important to gain a better understanding of the customer through periodically planned analysis that identifies patterns that trigger dynamic content-i.e., relevant and personalized communication. The ‘spray-and-pray’ (or ‘batch and blast’) approach is typically a desperate attempt to acquire customers in a short period of time in the absence of focus and a well thought-out customer plan, which actually results in the long-term alienation of a significant majority of customers.
An example from Aberdeen Group’s research titled “Sales Effectiveness: Getting Sales Back to Selling” ( Authors: Andrew Boyd and Noel Le) cites that the top strategic action taken by sales managers in Best-in-Class sales organizations is to focus on lead quality, not solely the quantity of leads coming down the pipeline. It was further cited that increasing the quantity of leads was rated among the lowest strategic priorities.

Strategic targeting and better accuracy through customer value segmentation and measurement assists in identifying the right types of potential and current customers to work with-and waiting for the feedback can even capture the same drama of a reality television show in the process.

Alterian (LSE: ALN) empowers organizations to create relevant, effective and engaging experiences with their audience that help build value and reinforce commitment to their brand, through the use of the Alterian Integrated Marketing Platform. Alterian drives the transformation of marketing and communications, making it practical and cost-effective for companies to orchestrate multichannel engagement with the individual.

The web seminar takes place on Thursday October 1 at 10:30 CET (Berlin/Paris time)
that equals; 09:30 in London, 12:30 in Moscow and Dubai. Very early in USA.

Join us to learn about;

- how to revitalize your current email marketing program to become more relevant
- how to align your existing customer insights with your email marketing insights in order to better match the right message to the right audience at the right time
- how to effectively implement an email marketing profiling program
- how to avoid the most common pitfalls
- a concrete case study showing how these tactics have been put into play

It is free to join this web seminar. Go here to register now.

About Michael Leander
Michael Leander is the CEO of Fokus Integrated and one of the most experienced email marketers in Europe, having worked professionally with email marketing since 1995. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, seminars and masterclasses around Europe and one of the highest rated webinar speakers in Europe.
As the current Chairman of FIMAC, he takes an active part in shaping the future of direct and interactive marketing
You can learn more about his activities here

This web seminar is kindly sponsored by Alterian

September 10, 19:00 CET (Berlin time) / 18:00 London time / 1 pm New York / 10 am Los Angeles

Are you measuring the customer experience today?

Would you like to know how you can increase the value of your customer experience programs by utilizing proven and highly effective modern techniques?

Does your company have a significant inflow of customer respons - on the phone, through your websites and physical touchpoints?

Go to register for free now

Would you like to know how other companies have significantly increased their customer satisfaction, customer experience and loyalty by implementing a highly actionable methodology?

Is it interesting for you to experience how live customer listening posts can help you decrease churn/customer defection?

If you can answer yes to any one of the questions above, join us for this 70 minute web-seminar presentation covering

- insights about one of the most current techniques to measure customer satisfaction
- case studies with an emphasis of tangible results
- future trends for surveying the customer experience and how you can leverage your market and customer research spending better

The presenter - Fredrik Abildtrup - is a highly experienced expert in the field of customer experience management.

Here is a brief introduction to Fredrik Abildtrup

Fredrik Abildrup is currently the Chief Executive Officer at TeleFaction - a company specialized in customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and customer retention concepts.
Fredrik and his team are helping organizations across Europe obtain tangible results in the areas of customer satisfaction, customer retention and win-back programs.

At the web-seminar he will share some of his experiences on how a live and actionable measure of the customer experience will increase loyalty and retention in industries such as telecommunication, financial services, banking, insurance and other industries wih a large inflow of customer enquiries.

Before joining TeleFaction, Fredrik Abildtrup served as a division Executive with T-Systems - a company of Deutsche Telekom. He is a graduate from the Copenhagen Business School with a degree in International Marketing and Management. Moreover, he has a master’s degree in International Business obtained via the CEMS-programme at the Universität zu St. Gallen in Switzerland.

BOOK YOUR FREE TICKET GO HERE NOW

If you are looking for a professional email marketing software (SaaS) solution, consider these reputable email marketing service providers

Alterian´s Integrated Marketing Platform empowers organizations to create relevant, effective and engaging experiences with their audiences that build value, generate revenue and reinforce brand.
–> Learn more about Alterian in English or in German

BusinessFinder is the leading provider of B2B email marketing services in Italy; its database is made by 600.000 opt-in e-mail addresses of Italian companies selectable by geographical area, industry, legal status and size (employees and turnover).
–> Learn more about BusinessFinder here

ContactLab is the leading Italian provider of solutions relating to e-mail and digital direct marketing. The company offers a mix of technology and consultancy, from “turnkey” products to customized solutions for management of international campaigns.
–> Learn more about ContactLab in English or in Italian

EmailGarage unifies great email campaign management features with customer intelligence. EmailGarage helps you create, plan and send email campaigns. Webservices, project management and consulting are available on demand.
–> Learn more about EmailGarage in English, in French or in Dutch

GetResponse has been an innovation leader since 1998, providing easy-to-use, feature-rich email marketing services - from video recording, social media, and iPhone applications to world-class support. –> Learn more about GetResponse by Implix

Peytz & Co. advises media and other businesses on use of New Media. We put our resources to work to create innovative and market oriented technological solutions.
We focus on effective and measurable communication combining Web, electronic newsletters and online dialogue. We measure your customers’ satisfaction through focus groups and web panels. And we offer sophisticated technology that tailors the content of your web site to individual users. –> Learn more about Peytz & Co email solution

Reputy is Europe’s first Delivery Service Provider. We optimize commercial and transactional email deliverability. Through Reputy’s Managed Deliverability Service, businesses realize enhanced Trust, Click Through and Turnover.”

–> Learn more about Reputy in English or in Dutch

Schober is the leading provider in Europe for data and services for interactive marketing. With more than 400 employees in 15 countries, Schober provides information and marketing services to more than 25,000 customers each year. Schober is the owner of the eCRM solution, Xprofiler, eMailing technology solution used by more than 350 current successful mailers in Europe. 
–> Learn more about Schober in English here

SpinnakerPro is an award-winning email marketing platform that is secure, affordable, easy to use with the best delivery rates in the industry.

—> Learn more about Spinnaker Pro here

As a software independent consultancy, 22 Times offers independent advice and execution, fully tailored to your situation and needs. We help from the start of an emailing to the finish and beyond, constantly improving your results
–> Learn more about 22 Times in English or in Dutch

White Image is a leading provider of loyalty and email marketing solutions, dedicated to develop a highly specialized and strong software platform. Focused on creating insightful and innovative tools that can provide its clients with highly effective feedback, White Image is committed to deliverability and to highest standards in email marketing.
–> Learn more about White Image on their website or blog

Reaching the inbox of your customers and prospects and generating high response are inextricably linked. Subscribers quickly tire of irrelevant messages and will complain by clicking the “report spam” button, depressing response rates for all campaigns. The only way to improve inbox deliverability and response is to create compelling subscriber experiences. Subscribers want email that has valuable and interesting content that promotes products they want to buy and that comes at a frequency that is neither too often nor too seldom


Focus on building a relationship
A single email can make or break a valuable customer relationship. So why are 89 % of today’s marketers still sending low-value, one-off broadcast email campaigns? It’s wiser to plan strategically and execute high-value individualized lifecycle marketing programs.A Jupiter Research study unveiled that - despite the extra costs - engaging your audiences in more relevant communications increases net profits by an average of 18 times more than broadcast mailings. Even more important, relevance is of major influence in your email deliverability.

A recent Return Path study confirms this and highlights that most deliverability failures are caused by the marketer’s poor data collection habits and complaints from email recipients in response to the content and frequency of the marketer’s messages. Even the best email service provider cannot control these factors.
These factors rest in the hands of the marketer alone.

You have the data, now use it
In order to better understand your subscribers needs, you can analyze your transactional data (e.g. e-commerce sales), preference data (obtained through surveys) and behavioral data (e.g. clicks in an email). Analysis will give you a pretty good understanding about what interests and drives email newsletter readers. A professional email campaign management platform (like a.o. EmailGarage) should provide you with plenty of data on your readers’ preferences and behavior.

Is your reputation at stake?
Marketers who believe that only the ESP (Email Service Provider / Platform) is responsible for deliverability to the inbox are wrong. The reputation of the broadcasted email is what determines inbox placement. ESPs have no control over what kind of email gets sent, whether or not the subscribers value that email or how the marketer has collected his email addresses. The vast majority of factors that affect inbox deliverability are about targeting the right offer, to the right subscriber, at the right frequency; data collection practices; and list quality.

Email service providers do have a ‘limited’ amount of influence, though. The infrastructure of the supplier - meaning how the servers are configured and whether or not the proper authentication and security protocols are in place - is an important factor to consider. Email sent from improperly configured servers will be blocked by ISPs. Your service provider’s other clients can also have an impact on your deliverability. ISPs look at reputation on IP addresses as a whole - and sometimes groups of IP addresses. So if you share an IP with marketers who engage in poor sending practices then your reputation will be tarnished, too. Check it out when you decide to work with an email service provider.

ABOUT EMAILGARAGE
As a leading email marketing service provider (ESP), EmailGarage takes part in FEDMA’s Pan European Email Marketing Benchmark 2009.
EmailGarage unifies great email campaign management features with customer intelligence. EmailGarage helps you create, plan and send email campaigns. Webservices, project management and consulting are available on demand.
www.emailgarage.com

Düsseldorf, 13.08.2009, von Sebastian Paulke - Vorletzte Woche hat der Otto-Versand in seinem Online-Shop unter anderem das edle MacBook Air von Apple zum Super-Schnäppchenpreis von 49,95 Euro angeboten: 2.565 Besteller orderten ein Gerät - und wurden dann mit der Entschuldigung abgespeist, es handele sich um einen „Fehler”. Vodafone, immer auf der Suche nach Kunden für seine Mobile-Web-Angebote, launchte Anfang Juli die auf das Social Web zielende Kampagne „Es ist deine Zeit”, in der Social Web-Gurus wie der Berliner Sascha Lobo als Testimonials für die Social Web-Tauglichkeit der Vodafone-Produkte Zeugnis ablegten.

Doch die enorme Aufmerksamkeit, die die Unternehmen erfuhren, hat sich im Social Web zunächst als Bumerang erwiesen: Vodafone und Sascha Lobo bezogen Prügel aus der Bloggosphäre, Lobo kann seinen Ruf als „Apologet der Generation Upload” vergessen - weil der Konzern entgegen seines Social Web-Commitments Netz-Zensur betreibt und das der Blogging-Szene auffiel. Der Otto-Versand musste sich auf manchen Marketing-Blogs gar fragen lassen, ob der „Fehler” nicht statt dessen eine reine PR-Kampagne war, wofür in der Tat einiges spricht.

Leslie Gaines-Ross, Chief Reputation Managerin der internationalen PR-Agentur Weber-Shandwick, erklärte in der aktuellen Titelstory des Nachrichtenmagazin DER SPIEGEL die Problematik der Corporate Imagepflege im Social Web: „Vor 15 Jahren schalteten Konzerne große Werbekampagnen zur Imagepflege, und das war’s. Heute müssen Sie unmittelbar auf einen Blog-Beitrag oder ein Video reagieren können”. Die Reputationsexpertin empfiehlt Ihren Konzernkunden daher, „mindest einmal täglich das Meinungsbild über ihre Konzerne zu erfassen, in Blogs, auf Facebook oder wo auch immer Firmenname oder -Produkte auftauchen.”

Florian Haarhaus

Innovative Konzerne tun dies bereits, weiß Florian Haarhaus, Deutschlandchef von Alterian, dessen Unternehmen auch Social Web-Monitoring- und Analyse-Tools anbietet: „Immer mehr Unternehmen, die Massenmärkte bedienen, setzen auf softwaregestütztes Monitoring und laufende Analysen des Social Webs, um Trends früh erkennen und gegensteuern zu können”, so der Dialogmarketingfachmann: „Nur so läßt sich ein Kommunikationsgau verhindern bzw. abschwächen, noch bevor er sich ereignet.” Dabei ginge es vor allem darum, durch Maßnahmen in den anderen Kanälen indirekt auf die Meinungsbildung im Social Web einzuwirken. Haarhaus: „Erstens bleibt so die Authentizität der Meinungen im Social Web gewahrt und zweitens können Unternehmen aus den Aussagen der Social Web-User über ihre Produkte wertvolle Rückschlüsse zur zukünftigen Produktentwicklung, für Kommunikationsstrategien und sonstige Image-Kampagnen ziehen.”

Diese Strategie scheinen auch Otto und Vodafone verstanden zu haben: Otto schickte schon 48 Stunden, nachdem sich im Social Web ein „Taifun der Entrüstung” erhoben hatte, allen Bestellern einen Gutschein über 100 EUR sowie eine Los für eine Apple-Lotterie. Vodafone stieg mit „Botschafter” Lobo aktiv und offen in die Social Web-Diskussion ein und erwarb sich damit den Respekt vieler Blogger und Social Web-Aktivisten. Dafür haben beide hohe Reichweiten in allen Medien inklusive des Social Webs erlangt - und können enorme Medialeistung für kleines Geld verbuchen.

Scott Davis is a Senior Partner with Prophet. He has 20 years of brand, marketing strategy, and new product development experience that he has brought to bear for many Prophet clients, including GE, ExxonMobil, The Carlson Companies, Johnson and Johnson, The Wrigley Company, Boeing, Payless ShoeSource, and Allstate.

Scott is the author of Brand Asset Management: Driving Profitable Growth Through Your Brands (2000), named one of the top 30 books of 2000 by Executive Book Summaries. Scott’s second book, Building the Brand-Driven Business: Operationalize Your Brand to Drive Profitable Growth (2002) was published to highly regarded reviews. His third book, The Shift: The Transformation of Today’s Marketers into Tomorrow’s Growth Drivers was released in May 2009. (watch out on this blog for a review of that book).

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I can’t boil down a 225-page book into 10 minutes. But I could tell you a little bit about the premise and what I was thinking about when I wrote the book. And it’s this - I’ve been in marketing for a long. I’ve written - this is my third book. And it’s this challenge that I continue to see in the marketplace around marketing. And it’s a challenge that’s been highlighted by a study that’s leveraged in the States through an organization called Spencer Stewart which actually looks at the lifespan of senior marketers whether its chief marketing officers, senior VP’s of marketing, directors of marketing and they continue to have a lifespan in an organization between 2 and 2½ years.

So they enter an organization for about 2 years, there’s some questions around the 2 year mark and then they leave after 2½ years. And I look at CEO’s, I look at CFO’s, I look at COO’s and every one of them had a lifespan of at least 5 to 7 years within an organization.

And so this has been haunting me for many years as to why this is the case. And I think it’s because. and we started talking about this a little bit this morning, marketing does a terrible job of marketing itself.

And what we end up doing is we create a doom loop. And it’s a very circular mentality.

Marketing is thought of as managing the agency relationships, taking care of marketing communications, taking care of sales programs, printing the brochure and being the logo caps. And it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy because we’re not actually adding a lot of demand generation and value to the bottom line.  And I call these tactician marketers in the book. And we all know them they’re out and they’re part of our world. On the other hand, I’m dealing with a lot of clients, of colleagues and friends that had made a leap. And they are now what I called visionary marketers. And they have a different profile and they’ve rebranded themselves in their organizations and they rebranded marketing in their organizations to be much more about driving growth and driving demand.

So here’s the attributes of these folks.

So they are PNL oriented so they think about the P&L in everything they do and every decision they make. They have relationships with the executive suite that go beyond just a “hi and a bye” in the hallway but they actually are deep collaborative relationships. They have relationships at the board level so they are actually reporting into the board and working with the board on a daily basis. They are thinking about the growth agenda every single day. And they have figured out a way to actually link marketing into the 3 to 5 year growth plans of the organization. They are thinking about hitting the quarterly numbers but also planting longer term seeds for growth. And they’ve really taken hold of the innovation agenda. And I think most interestingly, these folks have built teams around them with capabilities and competencies that have made them better. And they continue to look for individuals that are actually better than them to help bolster their own game.

And so as Charlie introduced this idea of the economic situation that we’re in today and companies searching for organic growth and leveraging the assets that they currently have. It’s a moment of time for marketers to step up and take on a different profile and it’s one that again I would say is headed directly to the growth agenda. And so what I suggest in the book is thinking about these tactician marketers, thinking about these visionary marketers, what of the shifts that they’ve made? And there are 5 course shifts that I talked about in the book and I won’t try to get to all of them in any kind of depth.

But the first shift is all about stop thinking about marketing strategies and start thinking about the growth agenda and the growth and business impact. I think too often as marketers, we build a marketing plan that’s base on what we did last year, an incremental growth or incremental budget over last year as opposed to what are the 5 revenue line or demand initiatives that we are focus on to drive our numbers for the year. And how do I link myself to those? So this first shift is getting out of marketing as the activity and getting into growth and impact as really the driver and how do we better link those two together.  And there’s a lot of - in the book I talked a lot about the ways that marketers could earn credibility in actually doing that.

The second shift is one that’s a little harder for marketers to get their heads around. And it’s this idea of we no longer control the brand.  We need to seize control of the brand. Others outside our four walls actually on the brand and I would argue that’s been the case for a long time. When I worked at P & G it was always the case that Moms own the brand. And to this day the network continues to cascade out in terms of those folks that are influencing the brand and actually driving purchase intent and consideration of preference. And it’s very rarely that we are able to push our message forward and actually get a consumer to react directly to our message. It’s this world around us that are driving purchase intent.

So how do we influence the network? Third, I do not believe there’s anybody better set in the organization to drive innovation than marketing. And I still do not understand why marketers are not given more of an innovation lead. And so I talked a lot about in the book this idea of stop thinking about incremental improvements, stop thinking about stage gate processes, stop thinking about line extensions and flankers and start thinking about new business models, new customer experiences, new pricing strategies, new channel strategies and different ways to leverage your customer insights to actually drive the innovation agenda forward.

Fourth shift, one of my colleagues was here a few months ago and he talked a lot about marketing accountability and how do you start to measure return on investment. And I think we’ve gotten to the point in marketing where it is a science and we can actually figure out what our sponsorship returns to us. But I’m seeing a different type of agenda for a lot of marketers. -A different type of agenda where marketers are looking at “Am I making an investment in the sponsorship?” Or “Am I going to make an investment in increasing my sales office in the western region?” And these marketers are selfless in thinking about growth and they only think about growth when they stop thinking about marketing communications tactics.

And the fifth shift I talked about in the book is this one that surround how do you organize around the customer? And stop organizing around how you are set up inside. And I find too many companies that think about the organization and the org construct in the hierarchy is how they represent themselves to the market as opposed to putting the customer at the center of the world. And one of my best examples is we’re talking before about NBC as one of our clients is how do you put the customer and the viewer in the middle of your world as opposed to the network? And do you actually start to think about all the different ways to influence that viewer. And there are multiple ways and I think for too often in the media world, it’s the network that’s in the middle, it’s the one-half hour sitcom away from finding our way again. And the reality is the viewer is looking at your network and everything around your network is the way they want to interact with you. And so how do we start the shift at that network? And I’ve talked to marketers at ge.comstock@cmo@bestbuy Barry Judge, the CMO there at Wal-Mart Steven Queen, the CMO there and they’ve all figured out different ways to break through. And I think what they’ve all done is they’ve spent time in the field ringing the cash registers, talking to customers, they spend time within P&O’s of running P&O’s, they’ve taken small victories that they’ve had in the marketplace and they figured it out how to package them and they figured it out how to intimately put themselves in connection with the growth agenda and really trying to drive a longer term strategy.

And these 5 shifts of the book, they’re not easy, they’re bit aspirational for many companies but I think those companies that want to try to separate themselves from tactician marketers only to what I would call visionary marketers have to start to make these shifts. And I’ll talk more about this at the Q & A. Thank you.

[Music Playing]

Mirko Holzer, BrandMaker

Gut haben es diejenigen Marketingverantwortlichen, die auf diese Frage souverän und mit wenigen Mausklicks ihr Ergebnis schwarz auf weiß präsentieren können: 235 Kontakte, 40 Neukunden, 10 % Umsatzsteigerung, mehr als alle vergangenen Veranstaltungen in diesem Jahr zusammen.

Und wer mit Sicherheit sagen kann, welche Marketingmaßnahme welchen Beitrag zur Zielerreichung beisteuert, kann nicht nur seinen Vorgesetzten gegenüber fundiert berichten, wie es um die Marketing Performance steht - er kann in schwierigen Zeiten auch sichergehen, die richtigen Dinge zu streichen.

- Möchten Sie erfahren, wie Ihre Marketingplanung und budgetierung mehr Struktur und Transparenz erhält und damit als Ausgangsbasis für die professionelle ROI-Messung dienen kann?

- Möchten Sie ein Modell kennenlernen, mit dem Sie erfolgreich die Ergebnisse Ihrer Werbung einordnen und bewerten können?

- Möchten Sie eine Softwarelösung kennenlernen, die Sie bei diesen Aufgaben adäquat unterstützt und sehen, wie so etwas funktioniert?

Im Web-Seminar „Was bringt das eigentlich? ROI-Messung im Marketing fängt bei der Planung an!” am 16 September 2009, greift Mirko Holzer, CEO der BrandMaker GmbH, diese Fragen auf und liefert Ihnen Lösungsansätze für einen besseren Überblick über Ihre Marketingplanung, bessere Budgetkontrolle und den Einsatz von ROI-Modellen im Marketingbereich.

Erfahren Sie, wie spezielle Marketingsoftware Sie bei diesen Aufgaben unterstützt und entlastet und sehen Sie in einer Online Demo, wie solche Tools in der täglichen Arbeit eingesetzt werden.

Kostenlose Registrierung

Berlin, 23.07.2009, von Sebastian Paulke - Mit dem Beschluss der Datenschutznovelle II (Datenhandel) hat der Deutsche Bundestag am 3. Juli 2009 wesentliche Änderungen für die Verwendung von Daten zu Werbezwecken in die Gesetzgebung eingebracht. Nach der absehbaren Zustimmung des Bundesrates werden in Deutschland ab dem 1. September 2009 härtere Spielregeln gelten, die insbesondere die Datenbank-, Direkt- und Dialog-Marketing-Branchen vor große Herausforderungen stellen werden: Bei Verstößen gegen die neuen Regeln drohen Bußgelder von bis zu 300.000 Euro.

Der Vorsitzende des BDU-Fachverbandes Management und Marketing, Ralf Strehlau, forderte im Branchenmagazin Absatzwirtschaft die Wirtschaft dazu auf, sich schnell mit der neuen Gesetzeslage vertraut zu machen: „Jede Führungskraft, welche über Direktmarketingaktionen für die Neukundengewinnung entscheidet, sollte sich zukünftig noch stärker darüber Gedanken machen, welche Adressdatenbestände er einsetzt. Transparenz und Qualität haben Ihren Preis. Die ‚billigste’ Adresse kann zukünftig sehr teuer werden.”

Solche Bußgelder ließen sich nach Einschätzung des Spezialisten für Marketingautomatisierung Florian Haarhaus, Deutschlandchef des Dialogmarketing-Technologieanbieters Alterian, jedoch auch zukünftig ausschließen, wenn Unternehmen die neuen Regeln kennen und Strategien anpassen: „Auch nach dem 1. September können Unternehmen ja weiter Neukunden ansprechen - solange sie es richtig machen und die Fallstricke kennen. Solange die Marketingverantwortlichen wissen, welche Strategien Rechtssicherheit bieten und wie sie den Paradigmenwechsel vom Opt-out zum Opt-in vollziehen können, ohne gegen Gesetze zu verstoßen, können sie natürlich auch in Zukunft einen intensiven, relevanten Kundendialog initialisieren und entwickeln.”

Was Unternehmen dabei zu beachten haben, erläutert Haarhaus am 15. September, 10:30 Uhr in dem kostenlosen, öffentlich zugänglichen Webinar „Das neue Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG) - Die neuen Herausforderungen für Vertrieb und Marketing… Von Opt-out zu Opt-in!” gemeinsam mit Georg Blum, Mitglied im Vorstand des Deutschen Dialogmarketing Verbands e.V.
 und RA Dr. Markus Klinger von Kleiner Rechtsanwälte.

Anhand vieler Beispiele aus B2B und B2C zeigen die Experten in dem Webinar auf, welche Herausforderungen das neue BDSG für Unternehmen mit sich bringt und vor allem wie man diese Probleme löst. Dabei werden die Beispiele aus Sicht des Vertriebs bzw. Marketing beschrieben und im Anschluss einer rechtlichen Beurteilung unterzogen. Die Teilnehmer erhalten so wichtige Tipps, wie sie rechtssicher Ihre Interessenten- und Kundendaten qualifizieren, um einen dauerhaften Dialog mit ihren Zielgruppen auch unter den neuen rechtlichen Anforderungen führen zu können.

Weitere Informationen und Anmeldung zum Seminar

UNTERNEHMENS- / PRESSEKONTAKT
Alterian Technology: Anbieter einer Softwareplattform für Analyse, Kampagnensteuerung und Content Management im Marketing
Alterian schafft die technische Voraussetzung für integrierte Marketingprozesse mit einer integrierten Marketingplattform, die alle Informationen über die Kunden und Interessenten sowie deren Beziehung zu einem Unternehmen in einer einzigen zentralen Marketingdatenbank zusammenfasst. Der Aufbau und die Bedienung der Lösungsfamilie orientieren sich konsequent an den Bedürfnissen von Marketingspezialisten - Datenanalyse, Kampagnensteuerung und Content Management lassen sich damit im täglichen Marketingbusiness besonders schnell, einfach und reibungslos nutzen. Mit der integrierten Marketingplattform von Alterian steigern Unternehmen die Produktivität und Berechenbarkeit ihres Marketings nachhaltig und messbar.

Das Unternehmen wurde 1997 gegründet und ist an der Londoner Börse (ALN) notiert. Mit Büros in Nordamerika, Europa, Australien und Asien betreut Alterian Technology Limited über 1.500 Kunden in 26 Ländern.

Kostenlose Webinar

Marketing - der stressigste Job der Welt? In Zeiten wachsenden Kostendrucks und erhöhter Anforderungen sind viele Marketingverantwortliche auf der Suche nach Wegen, um mit gleichbleibenden oder weniger Mitteln und Manpower mehr zu erreichen. Die Steigerung von Effizienz und Produktivität rückt stärker in den Vordergrund.

Web seminar am 30 September 2009

-Ist es Ihr Ziel, unter verschärften wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen mit kreativen Konzepten und schnellen Reaktionszeiten messbaren Markterfolg zu erreichen?

-Haben Sie das Gefühl, dass administrative Reviews, Freigabeprozesse, Abstimmungen und Korrekturschleife Sie blockieren und unnötig viele Ressourcen in Anspruch nehmen?

-Möchten Sie wissen, wie Sie durch Optimierung der Abläufe im Marketing Ressourcen für mehr Wertschöpfung freisetzen?

Während in anderen Unternehmensbereichen die Prozess-Optimierung und (Teil-) Automatisierung bereits seit Jahren Kernbestandteil des Tagesgeschäfts ist, war das Marketing lange Zeit vom Nimbus des kreativen Chaos umgeben. Standardisierung und Automatisierung von Abläufen wurde mit Rotstift-Mentalität gleichgesetzt und als Kreativitätszerstörer gesehen.

Dabei ist die Prozess-Optimierung kein Hindernis für Kreativität, sondern vielmehr ein Mittel zur Schaffung von neuem Freiraum für das Wesentliche. BrandMaker ist in Europa führend unter den Anbietern für Softwarelösungen speziell für die Marketing-Prozess-Optimierung (MPO) und bietet eine modulare Software für alle Bereiche und Ebenen des Marketings.

Alexander Garkisch, Director Account Management bei der BrandMaker GmbH, führt Sie in das Thema MPO ein, zeigt auf wo sie ansetzt, wie sie die Produktivität verbessern kann und was das für die Marketingabteilung bedeutet.

Erfahren Sie, wie speziell für das Marketing entwickelte Software-Tools Sie im Tagesgeschäft bei der Kampagnenplanung, Abwicklung und beim Controlling entlasten und lernen Sie die Lösung von BrandMaker als ein Beispiel für softwaregestützte Marketing Prozess Optimierung anhand einer Live-Demonstration kennen.

Mirko Holzer, BrandMaker

Und Web-to-Print ist ein Thema, das die Unternehmen schnell vor Fragenzeichen stellt: Was ist das? Wann ist es überhaupt sinnvoll? Was lässt sich damit abdecken? Wie flexibel soll es sein, wie starr? Und vor allem: Wie viel Geld lässt sich damit einsparen? Dass die Landschaft der Hersteller heterogen und deren Anzahl fast unüberschaubar ist, macht die Auswahl eines Systems nicht leichter.

- Möchten Sie erfahren, wie Sie Ihre Anforderungen an Web-to-Print strukturiert erfassen, um die für Sie passende Lösung zu finden?

- Ist es Ihnen wichtig, vor Anschaffung eines Systems eine fundierte Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse durchführen zu können?

- Wünschen Sie sich Tipps und Hinweise, wie Sie erkennen, ob sich Web-to-Print für Ihr Unternehmen rechnet?

Mirko Holzer, CEO der BrandMaker GmbH, informiert Sie im Web-Seminar „Unter der Lupe am 20 Januar 2010: Was Sie über den Einsatz von Web-to-Print wissen müssen” über die Grundlagen von Web-to-Print und liefert Ihnen konkrete Ansätze, wie Sie Ihre eigenen Anforderungen besser erkennen, einen aussagekräftigen Use Case zur Rentabilität erstellen und Einsparpotenziale optimal ausschöpfen können.

Erfahren Sie, wie Web-to-Print Ihre operativen Marketingkosten für Printmedien senkt und sehen Sie, wie ein Web-to-Print System in der Praxis angewendet wird, damit Sie selbst die optimale Lösung finden können.

Jean-Marc König, BrandMaker

Gut haben es diejenigen Marketingverantwortlichen, die auf diese Frage souverän und mit wenigen Mausklicks ihr Ergebnis schwarz auf weiß präsentieren können: 235 Kontakte, 40 Neukunden, 10 % Umsatzsteigerung, mehr als alle vergangenen Veranstaltungen in diesem Jahr zusammen.

Und wer mit Sicherheit sagen kann, welche Marketingmaßnahme welchen Beitrag zur Zielerreichung beisteuert, kann nicht nur seinen Vorgesetzten gegenüber fundiert berichten, wie es um die Marketing Performance steht - er kann in schwierigen Zeiten auch sichergehen, die richtigen Dinge zu streichen.

- Möchten Sie erfahren, wie Ihre Marketingplanung und budgetierung mehr Struktur und Transparenz erhält und damit als Ausgangsbasis für die professionelle ROI-Messung dienen kann?

- Möchten Sie ein Modell kennenlernen, mit dem Sie erfolgreich die Ergebnisse Ihrer Werbung einordnen und bewerten können?

- Möchten Sie eine Softwarelösung kennenlernen, die Sie bei diesen Aufgaben adäquat unterstützt und sehen, wie so etwas funktioniert?

Im Web-Seminar „Was bringt das eigentlich? ROI-Messung im Marketing fängt bei der Planung an!” am 20 Oktober 2009, greift Jean-Marc König, consultant bei der BrandMaker GmbH, diese Fragen auf und liefert Ihnen Lösungsansätze für einen besseren Überblick über Ihre Marketingplanung, bessere Budgetkontrolle und den Einsatz von ROI-Modellen im Marketingbereich.

Erfahren Sie, wie spezielle Marketingsoftware Sie bei diesen Aufgaben unterstützt und entlastet und sehen Sie in einer Online Demo, wie solche Tools in der täglichen Arbeit eingesetzt werden.

Kostenlose Registrierung

Wie kommt es, dass die Suche nach einem ganz bestimmten Foto mitunter mehrere Marketingmitarbeiter für mehrere Minuten, manchmal sogar Stunden, beschäftigt und schlimmstenfalls gar nicht zum Ziel führt - und das im digitalen Zeitalter von Google & Co., die uns die kompliziertesten Fragen in nur Bruchteilen einer Sekunde beantworten?

Im Web-Seminar „Strategien für das effiziente Management von Media Assets” am 10 März 2010, greift Jean-Marc König, Consultant bei der BrandMaker GmbH, diese Frage auf und liefert Lösungsansätze für mehr Transparenz, Qualität und Effizienz bei der Verwaltung medialer Assets im Unternehmen. Er zeigt nicht nur die schöne neue Welt des Digital Asset Managements, sondern gibt den Teilnehmern konkrete Anleitungen für den steinigen Weg dorthin.

- Möchten Sie Ihre vorhandenen Medienobjekte, Bilder, Dokumente, etc. möglichst effizient einsetzen?
- Marketingabteilung besser investiert werden kann als in die manuelle Suche nach und Abstimmung bzw. Freigabe von Marketingmaterialien?
- Möchten Sie wissen, worauf Sie beim Einsatz einer Software zum Digital Asset Management achten sollten und wie Sie zu Ihrem „Google” für das Marketing kommen?

Während die zentrale Speicherung von Digital Assets im Marketing - Logos, Grafiken, Bilder, Dokumente, Präsentation und so weiter - in vielen Unternehmen als erklärtes Ziel gilt, gibt es doch kaum Transparenz und viel manuelle Arbeit rund um den Medienerstellungs-, Verwaltungs- und Abstimmungsprozess. Dabei ist die Anforderung, mit einem einzigen Suchvorgang per Mausklick ein gesuchtes Medium zu finden im Zeitalter von Google nicht überzogen.

Wie können Unternehmen also vorgehen, wenn Sie über die konsequente Zentralisierung Ihrer medialen Assets nachdenken? Welche Ziele werden mit Lösungen für Digital Asset Management erreicht? Wie geht die Systemeinführung von statten? Und wie sieht ein solches System in der Praxis aus?

Jean-Marc König führt Sie in das Thema Digital Asset Management ein und zeigt auf, wie es der Marketingabteilung zu mehr Effizienz, gesteigerter Qualität und schnellerer Time-to-Market verhilft. Erfahren Sie, wie ein Digital Asset Management System zum Einsatz kommt, sehen Sie anhand einer Live-Demo wie es in der Praxis aussieht und lernen Sie, wie Sie dauerhaft Potenziale zur Effizienzsteigerung mit Hilfe von Softwareunterstützung nutzen können.

Da davon unmittelbar die Unternehmenszentrale profitiert, versucht das zentrale Marketing, die lokalen Partner optimal bei Werbung und Verkauf zu unterstützen. Sie sollen nicht nur nationale Kampagnen in die lokalen Märkte hineintragen, sondern auch auf eigene Initiative Werbung betreiben können. Nur: Das alles muss einfach und kostengünstig zu bewerkstelligen sein und gleichzeitig im Corporate Design des Konzerns erfolgen.

- Gehört der Verkauf Ihrer Produkte und Dienstleistungen durch dezentrale Vertriebspartner zu Ihrem Geschäftsmodell?
- Möchten Sie erfahren, wie Sie Ihre Partner in die Lage versetzen, mehr Erfolg durch mehr lokale Marketingpower zu generieren?
- Liegt es gleichzeitig in Ihrem Interesse, dass lokales Marketing die nationale Marke absolut Corporate Design-konform und konsequent unterstützt?

Mirko Holzer, BrandMaker

Mirko Holzer, CEO der BrandMaker GmbH, stellt Ihnen am 5 Mai 2010 im Web-Seminar „Handel, Fanchise, Außendienst: Mehr lokale Marketingpower durch eine zentrale Marketingplattform” das zentrale Marketingportal als Lösungsansatz für mehr lokale Marketingpower vor und informiert Sie darüber, wie Sie effizient und schnell nationale Kampagnen auch in lokale Märkte tragen. Erfahren Sie außerdem, wie Sie lokale Partner zur aktiven Umsetzung eigener Maßnahmen motivieren und in welcher Weise beide Seiten von nationalen und lokalen Erfolgen profitieren.

Sehen Sie anhand eines Praxisbeispiels, wie ein Marketingportal im Handelsmarketing, Franchisemarketing oder Außendienst aufgebaut ist und welche Funktionen und Möglichkeiten es den lokalen Partnern bietet.

Der virtuelle Job Manager stellt die Workflows rund um Beschaffungs- und Produktionsprojekte im Marketing auf eine transparente und qualitätsgesicherte Basis. Auf einer zentralen Plattform werden alle Jobs und Projekte verwaltet, nachverfolgt und abgestimmt ob vom Briefing über das Pricing bis hin zum Review. Er verspricht schnellere Abläufe, bessere Ergebnisse und mehr Transparenz.

- Haben Sie das Gefühl, dass Produktionsjobs Ihre Marketingressourcen unnötig blockieren und übermäßig viel Zeit in Anspruch nehmen?
- Kennen Sie die Situation, dass später keiner mehr nachvollziehen kann, wie es zum Ergebnis kam und vor allem weshalb das Ergebnis so geworden ist, wie es ist?
- Nervt Sie das heillose Versionsdurcheinander bei der Abstimmung von Entwürfen?

Alexander Garkisch, Director Account Management bei der BrandMaker GmbH, stellt im Web-Seminar „Der Job Manager: Marketing-Produktionsprozesse effizient gestalten” am 3 Februar 2010 das Konzept vom Job Manager vor, einer webbasierten Software, die Ihre Beschaffungs- und Produktionsworkflows standardisiert, automatisiert und als zentrale Plattform für Abstimmungen und Reviews das Chaos beendet.

Erfahren Sie, wie unterschiedliche Workflow-Templates den unterschiedlichsten Marketingprojekten gerecht werden. Sehen Sie anhand eines praktischen Beispiels, wie die Produktionsmanagement-Software ein Projekt vom Briefing bis zur Freigabe unterstützt und alle Beteiligten aus Unternehmens- und Agenturseite spürbar entlastet.

Kostenlose Webinar

Marketing - der stressigste Job der Welt? In Zeiten wachsenden Kostendrucks und erhöhter Anforderungen sind viele Marketingverantwortliche auf der Suche nach Wegen, um mit gleichbleibenden oder weniger Mitteln und Manpower mehr zu erreichen. Die Steigerung von Effizienz und Produktivität rückt stärker in den Vordergrund.

Web seminar am 21 April 2010

-Ist es Ihr Ziel, unter verschärften wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen mit kreativen Konzepten und schnellen Reaktionszeiten messbaren Markterfolg zu erreichen?

-Haben Sie das Gefühl, dass administrative Reviews, Freigabeprozesse, Abstimmungen und Korrekturschleife Sie blockieren und unnötig viele Ressourcen in Anspruch nehmen?

-Möchten Sie wissen, wie Sie durch Optimierung der Abläufe im Marketing Ressourcen für mehr Wertschöpfung freisetzen?

Während in anderen Unternehmensbereichen die Prozess-Optimierung und (Teil-) Automatisierung bereits seit Jahren Kernbestandteil des Tagesgeschäfts ist, war das Marketing lange Zeit vom Nimbus des kreativen Chaos umgeben. Standardisierung und Automatisierung von Abläufen wurde mit Rotstift-Mentalität gleichgesetzt und als Kreativitätszerstörer gesehen.

Dabei ist die Prozess-Optimierung kein Hindernis für Kreativität, sondern vielmehr ein Mittel zur Schaffung von neuem Freiraum für das Wesentliche. BrandMaker ist in Europa führend unter den Anbietern für Softwarelösungen speziell für die Marketing-Prozess-Optimierung (MPO) und bietet eine modulare Software für alle Bereiche und Ebenen des Marketings.

Jean-Marc König, BrandMaker

Jean-Marc König, Consultant bei der BrandMaker GmbH, führt Sie in das Thema MPO ein, zeigt auf wo sie ansetzt, wie sie die Produktivität verbessern kann und was das für die Marketingabteilung bedeutet.

Erfahren Sie, wie speziell für das Marketing entwickelte Software-Tools Sie im Tagesgeschäft bei der Kampagnenplanung, Abwicklung und beim Controlling entlasten und lernen Sie die Lösung von BrandMaker als ein Beispiel für softwaregestützte Marketing Prozess Optimierung anhand einer Live-Demonstration kennen.

For what you are about to hear today, may the readers of your future communications be truly grateful.

Thank you for letting me talk to you about something I love. I write passionately because I am passionate about writing.

Can you write?

Wonderful. The rest is just practice.

It is not a special gift.

Do you read newspapers?

Have you got a favourite book?

Do you read often?

Do you read ads?

Do you read direct mail packs?

Surely not.

There is so much bad direct mail. Most of it is written by people who ‘learn’ how to write direct marketing. They learn DM-speak. They follow all the rules from all the books but they end up with a dog’s dinner. They come on courses such as this one and get told by copywriters and Creative Directors how to write in a direct marketing way. Is this right? Isn’t writing just a simple conversation – person to person not robot to robot? And, via data, the more you know about them, the more personal it can be. You can write a multitude of different letters to a multitude of different people – that’s the beauty of targeting and lasering.

Salesmanship in print.
We have a job to do.

Don’t get me wrong, what we do HAS to sell. We get paid to get ROI. For every pound our clients spend they want at least a pound back, preferably two, three, four, ten, fifty, one hundred pounds. What we do is persuade people to part with their money. No need to shout and scream. No begging. No emotional blackmail. No ‘you’d be stupid not to’. A simple, intelligent conversation leading up to a sale. That’s what a good, old-fashioned salesman does. It is not about trickery, just common sense. Here are a few indicators to help you write things that are worth reading.

Words make history.
Choose them carefully.

This is the hard bit. Everything you ever write has to be thought through. Every single word you put down means something. You must think at length before you put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard. When you are writing an email, don’t put the recipient’s email address in until right at the very end when you are 100% happy (and when others are too – we’ll come on to the later.) Just one click in the wrong place sends the things you meant to correct/rephrase/remove in a split second.

Whether you are writing to your bank manager, your mum, your mate overseas or anyone else for that matter, what you say is incredibly important as it reflects back on you and your level of your overall capability and stature. Sloppy writing, poorly punctuated, rambling non-sentences make you look stupid and uncaring. Take pride in everything you write, words are truly wonderful.

A writer once told me that spelling and grammar weren’t his strong points, writing copy was. After all, someone else can correct his spelling and put the commas in the right place. Oh dear – someone doesn’t care. And if you don’t care when you’re writing it, why should someone care when they’re reading it?

Copy or text?

In one respect, he’s right though. Copy is completely different to text. Typists can write text – a series of factually correct statements that describe a product or service. No warmth, no humour, no understanding of the reader, no empathy, no flow but it might get read. Only by the most forgiving and persevering reader though (your mum).

Writing copy is incredibly simple though.

Write like you’re talking to someone.

No fancy words, no jargon, no marketing speak – think of someone you know who would be interested in the thing you-re writing about. Then just tell them about it in exactly the same words as you would if you were chatting to them. Nothing will appear false then and it won’t feel like yet another dirty sales piece. Yes, we are selling but we can do it with style. Keep the language simple and easy-going. Remember, you’re a salesman after all and how many salesmen do you know that have a English degree and a vocabulary worthy of a Poet Laureate? When was the last time a Booker-Prize winner tried to sell you double-glazing?

Start where the reader is.

To strike up a rapport and try to get a connection with the reader, start where the reader is, not where you want them to be. What this means is you need to forget how incredible the product or service is you are trying to sell – this is only of interest to the company selling it until you have got the ear and empathy of the reader. Try to understand the situation the reader is in when they receive your communication. Are they at home or at work? Will the weather be cold or hot? Do they have kids running round their feet trying to get them to school? Etc. Data and planning are key to understanding your audience. Once you have an understanding and they are nodding at what you are saying, they feel comfortable that you understand them. Only then can you go on to explain how your product or service can enhance their life.

You. You. You. Me.

As a rule of thumb, three ‘you’ to every one ‘me’. Everybody’s favourite subject is themselves. We know more about ourselves than anything else in the world. The opening paragraph is the absolute killer. This is the make or break for any letter. Bore them, confuse them or try and sell them here and you’re fighting a losing battle (unless either of these is actually part of the concept). You this, you that, you again – you might just keep them…

If the envelope is the shop window, enticing you inside, the brochure is the shop offering its wares, then the letter is the sale and has to clinch it by the end. Not all direct mail works in this way but think very very carefully before deciding to do without a letter. Some creatives will tell you that no one will read it anyway, or, keep it short because no one will have time to read it. This is nonsense.

People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s a mailpack.

Imagine telling a salesman no to say too much just in case the person gets bored… If you are selling something, learn all about it and tell the reader all of the benefits. They will decide if they want to read everything or simply skim through the cross-heads to get a quick idea of what it’s about before ploughing in. Often, we are asking people to part with a significant amount of their hard earned money. Wouldn’t you want to feel confident in the company before splashing out?

Crossheads are king.

Rarely does anyone read a letter immediately starting at the beginning and stopping at the end. The main headline should sum up exactly what the whole letter is about. The crossheads throughout give simple indications of what the following paragraphs are about. It’s strange that we start with the person’s name and end by signing off with a client’s signature, name and title as if it really is a personal letter. When was the last time you wrote to your friend and put headings in the letter explaining what you were writing in the next few sentences? Weird really. But everyone knows it’s a marketing communication and they’ll be asked to do something at the end. Our job is to get them there and to want to react/respond when they do.

Be succinct. Then shorten it.

Keep paragraphs short. Keep sentences short. No more than 16 words in a sentence if possible (otherwise they become a bit unwieldy) (I’ve just re-read some of this and come across a 26 words sentence – but I’m not selling to you!). Paragraphs must have no more than one thought in them. When you are working out what to cover in your letter or other written piece, write down separately all the different elements you need. Arrange them in order of importance then write about each one, always maintaining the thread of a story to link them so there is a flow.

In for the kill.

The climax though is the sell – you must know what you want them to do and give clear instructions of how to do this. Call this number, visit this website, email us at – whatever the call to action, make it very obvious. If there is an offer on the table, tell them about it up front if appropriate, but definitely show it in all its glory at the end. If there’s a close date, remember to put that it too. It’s amazing how many people think ‘I must do that later’ and never do. They must do it NOW, or it’s forgotten. Why waste money on a follow-up mailing when you should be doing your job properly in the first place.

P.S.

People will often read the PS before the rest of the letter. They are used to seeing an offer or something extra special down there. What little extra treat have you got in store for them if they do respond? Try and think up one if the client hasn’t.

Simplify.

Never think you have finished writing just because you have got to the end. What you have written is just the start. Everything you have written could be said in a different way, probably simpler, more effectively and with more personality. I hate being told that the client knew I’d written the copy. And I love being told that the client knew I’d written the copy. Hate because I don’t want to have a style – it should be infinitely adaptable. Love it because I hope I’m a damn good salesman and know what to say to get the response.

Murder your darlings.

Word plays, puns, cleverness for cleverness sake must go. There are only so many times you can refer to the concept of the mail piece without it feeling forced and cheesy. Keep within the boundaries of the idea but don’t try too hard.

Remember who you are speaking to.

Back to data, guys. If this is a cold audience, address them as such. If you have mailed them before and they have or have not responded, acknowledge this. Tell them about things they might be interested in. Only the irrelevant is boring. Talk too much about yourself whilst forgetting them is dull too – they’ll soon switch off. If your letter runs on to the next page, split it mid-sentence so they have a reason to turn over to keep reading. I like what Roald Dahl said about writing for children – ‘On the first page, grab them by the throat and don’t let go again until the end’. Do you read a book from cover to cover or a newspaper story after story simply because you’ve paid for them. No – the writers know how to write to get read. ‘Take a leaf out of their books’ – ‘literally’. (What did I say about puns..?)

Think about your argument.

Go back over and over your writing think about whether you are making your point. Primarily how stealthily you have been able to move them from where they are to where you want them to be. Once you understand their viewpoint, it is easy to empathise with them. This is by far the most persuasive of writing styles. It means writing as if you see the world through their eyes and can recognise their problems and their point of view. Is the writing natural and conversational?

GET SOMEONE ELSE TO READ IT

It doesn’t matter how fabulous you think you are, what position you are in the company or how much you get paid, you have to let other people read your copy. You are your own worst critic. The ‘I wrote it so it MUST be wonderful’ approach doesn’t help anyone. It is not a case of copywriting by committee or showing any sign of weakness. Everything can be improved on. Nothing is ever perfect.

Practice.

Just like everything in life, the more you do it, the better you get. Did you ever pick up a musical instrument and play it perfectly instantly? Could you have passed your driving test after your first lesson? Did you really need to go to school or were you that bright already? Everything worth anything in life requires effort to achieve.

One big confidence trick.

Who knows what’s right when you write? Be confident when you put the words down. Expect criticism. But keep writing. Confidently. In fact, I am confident that no one will actually bother to get to the end of this, not because it isn’t well written but because most people don’t actually want to learn anything new. They think that if they just simply turn up on a course, they’ll write better.

Get in touch with Chris Catchpole
- his website
- his blog

The best things don’t come to those that wait. They come to those that write.

• Recency - When was the last order?
• Frequency - How many orders have they placed with us?
• Monetary Value - What is the value of their orders?

It has been used by direct marketers for over 40 years as a segmentation tool to increase Return on Marketing Investment. The basic premise of RFM is that customers who have purchased more recently, more frequently and have spent more with your company are your best prospects for future direct marketing campaigns.

Interestingly, if you attend direct and interactive marketing seminars or conferences around the world, you will hear marketers of all sorts namedrop RFM. However, I - for one - am convinced that most have never bothered to actually understand what RFM really is all about, let alone applied this highly effective model in practice.

Like data mining/response modeling, the goal of RFM is to increase Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI - also known as Marketing ROI) by communicating only with the customers that are Most Likely to Respond (MLR - that’s I own that acronym now).

Creating an RFM analysis
To create an RFM analysis, one creates categories for each attribute. For instance, the Recency attribute might be broken into three categories: customers with purchases within the last 90 days; between 91 and 365 days; and longer than 365 days. Such categories may be arrived at by applying business rules, or using a data mining technique, such as CHAID, to find meaningful breaks.

Once each of the attributes has appropriate categories defined, segments are created from the intersection of the values. If there were three categories for each attribute, then the resulting matrix would have twenty-seven possible combinations (one well-known commercial approach uses five bins per attributes, which yields 125 segments).

Companies may also decide to collapse certain subsegments, if the gradations appear too small to be useful. The resulting segments can be ordered from most valuable (highest recency, frequency, and value) to least valuable (lowest recency, frequency, and value). Identifying the most valuable RFM segments can capitalize on chance relationships in the data used for this analysis. For this reason, it is highly recommended that another set of data be used to validate the results of the RFM segmentation process.

RFM has the virtue of simplicity: no specialized statistical software is required, and the results are readily understood by marketing people. In the absence of other targeting techniques, it can provide a lift in response rates for direct marketing and promotions.

Done well, you increase your ROMI as you attain almost the same number of sales by contacting only a fraction of your customer base.

MORE RESSOURCES:

If you want to learn more, why not start by downloading Mr. Jim Stafford’s RFM Whitepaper right here (no registration required).

Go to Fokus Integrated to see what they have to say about the matter

Read this highly interesting article “Quick profits with RFM Analysis by Arthur Middleton Hughes found at the Database Marketing Institute

or this article: RFM Migration Analysis: A New Approach to a Proven Technique by Jim Sellers and Arthur Middleton Hughes

The ENGAGEMENT db study claims to be the first to show a measurable correlation between higher levels of social engagement and superior financial performance.

Conducted by Altimeter Group’s Charlene Li in partnership with Wetpaint, the research set out to devise a way to objectively evaluate the depth and breadth of various brand marketing efforts across all social media. The resulting criterion, “engagement” was calculated by measuring each brand’s participation in various channels and examining how deeply involved various departments and executives were with each channel.

“The World’s Most Valuable Brands. Who’s Most Engaged?”  looks at engagement of the top 100 global brands in more than 10 social media channels, including Twitter, Facebook, blogs, wikis and discussion forums.

Download the full report here

Key survey findings:

* A brand’s depth of engagement can be measured.
* As the number of social media channels increase, overall engagement increases at a faster rate.
* Engagement differs by industry, with media and technology brands exhibiting the highest engagement levels and financial and food & beverage brands exhibiting the lowest levels. Starbucks is classified in the “leisure” industry.
* Brands in the survey are partitioned into one of four types based on the number of social media channels they participate in. The most engaged are “Mavens.” Other categories are “Butterflies” “Selectives” and the least engaged,”Wallflowers.” Among the least engaged brands: Allianz, AIG and Mercedes-Benz.
* Financial performance correlates with engagement. Companies that are both deeply and widely engaged in social media significantly surpass their peers in both revenues and profits. For example, The study found that “Mavens” typically enjoyed revenue growth of 18% on average over the last 12 months, while Wallflowers saw revenues fall 6%.

Other recent research (by Vitrue) found Apple’s iPhone to be the world’s most social brand, but did not link social media engagement with financial success.

From the introduction to the survey report
Historically, economic hardship motivates companies to take a good, hard look at their marketing
budgets and try to compute each investment’s financial value. This recession is no different, with
one exception: social media has become perceived as an indispensible marketing tool - one getting
increased investment - despite a historical inability to quantify its worth.

There is little left to debate about whether or not one should participate in social media - virtually all
companies, big and small, have acknowledged social media’s presence, and firms who do not have a
blog, Facebook page, or Twitter account now find themselves in the scarce minority. Many, however,
appear to be blindly hopping on the bandwagon - people are creating company profile pages and
sending updates without knowing how much they should invest in these distribution channels or what
success even looks like. This brings us back to Economics 101: how can a company effectively allocate
limited marketing resources if they cannot define the investment’s value?

For the first time ever, Wetpaint/Altimeter Group have gone beyond surface case studies to measure
the true financial value of social media. We conducted our research not just on a small scale, but based
on the world’s 100 most valuable brands - these are brands that are widely acknowledged for setting
the standards in marketing as measured by BusinessWeek / Interbrand “Best Global Brands 2008″
rankings. And now, we evaluate how well they are engaging their consumers using social media and,
even more importantly, how that engagement correlates with their most important financial metrics:
revenue and profit.

A surprising conclusion: While much has been written questioning the value of social media, this
landmark study has found that the most valuable brands in the world are experiencing a direct
correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement. The relationship is
apparent and significant: socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful.
So now we know it pays to be social, but it is important to note that by “social,” we’re talking about
deep engagement, not merely having a presence. And what exactly do we mean by deep social
engagement? Resembling any in-person exchange, socializing requires more than just being there
- you have to interact with others, instigate discussions, and respond during conversations. Our
study implies value in social engagement on top of social presence - it pays to actively and continually
participate and invest in your networks.

This report also contains case studies highlighting our interviews with four unique companies
- Starbucks, Toyota, SAP, and Dell - all of which scored top quartile engagement rankings. By going
beyond just the statistics, we introduce a playbook for how the best are succeeding in social media so
that you, too, can engage and succeed.

Our hope is that the data and best practices in the ENGAGEMENTdb Report provide a new way to think
about how to use these powerful tools and how companies should invest their marketing resources.
The right level of social media engagement could be the key to propelling you into tomorrow’s ranking
of the top 100 global brands.

Porter Gale - Porter Gale is an innovative marketing strategist and out-of-the-box thinker with nearly 20 years of experience working in marketing, advertising and independent filmmaking.

Prior to Virgin America, Porter ran the Porter Gale Group where she spearheaded a diverse array of projects. Her clients included Country Music Television, Blue Shield of California and Delta Dental. Porter also held the post of General Manager at Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners where she worked with a variety of clients including Vegas.com, Coach, Snapple Natural Beverages, Van Cleef & Arpels, Judith Leiber and Grand Marnier to name a few.

In the independent film world, Porter has produced or directed documentaries that have aired on Lifetime, PBS, Channel 4/England and in film festivals around the globe.

The FEDMA email marketing benchmark study is a unique initiative which aims to measure and benchmark the quality of pan-European email marketing. The study will run on an annual basis, and the first publication will be in October 2009 and will include at least ten European countries.

The study will be divided into two parts: Clients and Email Service Providers (ESPs). Furthermore it will measure volumes, open rates, bounce rates, opt-out rates, delivery rates, click through rates, frequency, purposes, forecasts, based on main segments that utilise the email marketing communication channel. Both marketing to business to business, and business to consumer communications are covered.

The study will be on both national and European level. The study will be the first ever European email marketing benchmark containing data from both Email Service Providers (ESPs) and marketers using email marketing (end-users).

Whom can contribute with benchmark data?
Email Service Providers (ESP’s) with activities in Europe are invited to submit data. Same goes for any (enduser) company currently using email marketing, whom would like to find out how key email marketing metric such as;

- open rates
- click through rates
- bounce rates
- opt-out rates

benchmark with companies from their industries in their own country or in other European countries.

Deadlines for Email Service Providers
Email service providers must complete the survey by September 20, 2009.
Email service providers must deliver a short bio along with a logo by September 25, 2009
Email service providers whom would like to have us publish articles on the blog can submit articles anytime.

Deadlines for end-users
Endusers wishing to participate must complete the survey by October 1, 2009.

Send an email to FIMAC Chairman Michael Leander (mln@fokusintegrated.com) if you would like to get an invitation to participate.

European benchmark report is made available to contributors
An executive summary of the FEDMA Pan European Email Marketing Benchmark will be made available to all ESP’s and enduser marketers whom contribute data to the study. Interested parties may purchase the complete Pan European Email Marketing Benchmark Report or any of the individual country reports which will be published.

Who is behind the first ever Pan European Email Marketing Benchmark?

The study is supported by numerous national Direct Marketing Associations - some of these will even offer national reports with additional contents relevant to specific to each country. National benchmark reports will also be on sale from September 2009.

If you would like to take part in the study please contact FEDMA’s Marketing and membership director Jørgen Nygaard Andreassen at +32 2778 99 28 or FIMAC Chairman Michael Leander at +45 27 28 29 53

Follow us on Twitter

You can follow the progress of the Pan European Email Marketing Benchmark Report study at the Twitter account here

You can follow FIMAC Chairman Michael Leander on Twitter here

Written by Andreas von der Heydt

As consumer goods aficionados and professionals we’re not only on this planet to sell goods and services and to make money. That would be too easy and by far too short-sighted. Being in permanent contact and exchange with consumers we’re also having a particular responsibility towards them and society. It’s a relationship of mutual dependency and shared responsibility.

Today e.g. many under 30-year-old, although a high percentage of them are well educated, are lacking decently paid jobs; or are even unemployed. For example in Europe unemployment across the E.U. is for 25-year-old and under with 17% much higher than in the general population with 7.6%. It’s a “disappointed generation” having its ambitions thwarted as the recession has tightened across Europe. A phenomenon so broad that in country after country people have coined shorthand terms to describe a generation frustrated by its plight: Generation 600 in Greece, Jeunes Diplomes in France, Mileurista in Spain, etc.

As seen with the riots in Greece last year (and now also every year in France, in Germany traditionally on May 1) many members of this young and “disappointed” generation are fed up with the disadvantages they’ve been suffering from and are growing tired of waiting. Some of these “social eruptions” certainly have their anarchist roots, at the same time, structural and social flaws are just as much to blame.

Disappointment being caused by unjust work contracts which in many countries have become the norm, by hopelessness (e.g. education and labour market not flexible and modern enough) and by unrealistic expectations of society (e.g. by their own families and friends) and by themselves (e.g. they have grown up with unrealistic consumerist expectations and feel frustrated when they can’t maintain them by not being able any longer to buy the clothing they want to, the vacations they can non longer take, etc.).

Especially “unrealistic consumerist expectations” and the “Born-into-Abundance-Era”, resulting from decades of strong economic growth and ever increasing expectations and further stimulated by exaggerated demands of society, have also created a “spoiled” society and most over a “spoiled generation of under 30-year-old.” A generation which believes to own a “natural right to receive,” and which is not always fully aware of having to give first, to be more modest and more patient.

British actor Sacha Baron Cohen in his new film “Brüno” is picking up exactly this topic: a society which has fallen a little bid too much in love with itself by having forgotten some true and long-lasting values like solidarity, honesty and a genuine interest in the wellbeing of people. Cohen, since Borat without any doubt the world’s most famous performance artist and the inventor of a perfect hybrid of documentary and mockumentary, plays a gay Austrian fashionista who with a naïve and narcissistic attitude sets himself loose upon a non-attentive and self-focused world.

What could be the way out? What should be done to enable this generation of young, well-educated and promising talents to prosper, to succeed and to positively influence our world and society in the years to come?

Two principal angles seem possible.
Firstly, they would need to take over responsibility by themselves - called “Principle Self Accountability” - and not wanting to put the blame on anyone else (although that even might be the case in certain circumstances):

- Adjust your expectations: career, success and prosperity are not a given and they’re not coming automatically; even not when being well educated. A very positive and “winning attitude” can easily count more than a very good education, if this were not “displayed” and “lived” in the right way. It takes a lot of persistency, ambition, self-motivation and hard work. You will need to be willing “to go the extra mile”. At the same time have your vision about the future. Think big, and start small!

- Be mobile and flexible: as already described many years ago by the great thinker and management guru Charles Handy we definitely and inevitably have entered the Age of Unreason. An era of discontinuity and permanent change. There’s only one consistent element in it: change!

- Develop a passion for permanent learning and personal growth: know-how and technical expertise become very quickly outdated and obsolete. Be and stay curious, learn different things, study them with new techniques (e.g. apply lateral thinking techniques like mind mapping, etc vs more traditional approaches), stimulate others and yourself by looking closely at different disciplines (e.g. if you’re a marketer try to understand supply chain strategies, HR themes, etc) or even completely different fields of life (e.g. arts, foreign cultures and languages, etc).

- Be unique and clear about your strengths. Make sure you possess distinct and relevant characteristics to successfully differentiate yourself. On a constant basis focus on strengthening your strengths and only in a second step to reduce and/or eliminate your weaknesses.

- Be critically self-confident and develop a positive and constructive “Can-do and challenger attitude”. It neither helps yourself nor your employer, employees, peers, etc. if you always agree and try to be “everybody’s darling.” According to George Bernard Shaw there are two kinds of people: Those who adapt themselves to the world and those who insist that the world adapts itself to themselves. It’s the latter group which makes the world to move on. Saying that, it’s a matter of the right timing and - referring back - it only should be insisted on that once you’ll have successfully proven yourself over a longer period of time and once you’ll have acquired a certain level of reputation, communication skills and authenticity.

The second angle is what I would like to call “Leadership and Managerial Responsibility.” As leaders and managers we have the responsibility to develop promising talents by giving feedback, guidance and coaching (this is also and especially true for all line managers and not only the company’s HR department) and to make sure that things don’t overheat:

- Everyone who shows above-listed attributes should get her or his chance without any exceptions. Managers would need to fully support it.

- There should be specific development and career plans in place for those people.

- They should be managed according to the “D&D” principle: being managed and coached in a “Demanding” way (to prepare them for a very tough competitive environment and to take away any potential “illusions”) and in a “Developing” way (i.e. with the objective to build a long-term and successful career with and for them).

- Furthermore it’s the responsibility of senior management to avoid classical “rat races” among team members and to encourage their teams doing new things in new ways and based on fair play and comprehensive ethics: i.e. in a responsible and sustainable fashion. That’s where their experience and broad know-how needs to be transformed into active guidance and coaching of younger employees and team members.

To successfully integrate young people and professionals into today’s FMCG and retailing industry as well as into other industry sectors is one of the key challenges of our times. In a world of abundance, self-focus and selfishness it will require a strong level of reflection, discipline and a paradigm shift from all stakeholders.

Only if this evolution and succession planning will be mastered in an adequate form, then future prosperity, social peace and individual satisfaction can be guaranteed.

—

This article was written by Andreas von der Heydt (his profile on Xing here), Managing Director of L’Oreal Poland.

Originally published in the group “Consumer Goods” - People & Products in a Global Market Place