marketing

Strategy. The company decides which business it wants to be in and how it will compete, creating a “unique and valuable position involving a distinctive set of activities.” It’s another way of saying, I think, here is what we can do better than anyone else and how we can defend our position in a competitive marketplace. Business Model. I like the authors’ description of the business model as the “logic of the company.” This is how the firm organizes and operates, how it delivers value to customers, and how it captures value for stakeholders. It must align with company goals. Tactics. Tactics are the steps used to compete in the marketplace, and they are defined largely by the business model. If your business model is built around direct sales, your tactics won’t involve incentives to retailers, for example.

A friend in the lead generation space recently made a very interesting observation about public relations.  He said he thinks most PR is like taking a match to a newspaper: a flash fire that burns out as quickly as it ignites.  What many companies lack is “slow burn” PR.  That’s to say, content that throws off heat for a long time.

The problem is these articles are mostly of mediocre quality. And when I say that, I’m being generous. Here is the real problem. Getting articles written is too easy, and too inexpensive. You just print out a list of 500 keywords you would like to be ranked for, and then submit them to overseas writers who are happy to write them for a few dollars each.

2009 was a big year for publishers. Audience engagement with content has once again grown by 30% percent, even as the balance of engagement has changed dramatically. On-site engagement has dropped over 50%, while off-site engagement, now over 80% of most publishers’ total engagement, has skyrocketed!

This year's Question is "How is the Internet changing the way YOU think?" Not "How is the Internet changing the way WE think?" We spent a lot of time going back on forth on "YOU" vs. "WE" and came to the conclusion to go with "YOU", the reason being that Edge is a conversation. "WE" responses tend to come across like expert papers, public pronouncements, or talks delivered from stage.

This is deeply misguided advice. We should rely less, not more, on intuition. A huge body of research has clarified much about how intuition works, and how it doesn't. Here's some of what we've learned:

What struck me is how the gap is narrowing between face-to-face and online events. You could usually rely on a fully attentive audience face-to-face while bemoaning the ease with which multitasking occurs online. The reality is that the same phenomenon is now occurring in each setting.

Segment-based. In the epiphany and awareness stages, with minimal client information, the value proposition is defined to address the needs of a specific market segment. The segment-based value proposition is not designed to sell. The purpose of the statement is to get potential buyers to take action to learn more. That action can be going to your Website, picking up the phone to call you, attending a Webinar, or reading a white paper. Role-based. Moving from the awareness to interest stages, the value propositions become more targeted to subsegments and specific roles within organizations, such as CIOs, sales management, or business unit leaders. Such individuals often have different perceptions of value based on their roles and responsibilities. Role-based value propositions resonate when they address the specific business needs of the people or personas the company is trying to reach. They require a deeper level of understanding of the like-minded groups of people the company is communicating with, including their needs, desires, motivations, expectations, goals, fears, skills, and biases. Client-specific. These value propositions are designed to move prospects from interest to confidence or buy mode. The client-specific value proposition addresses the particular needs of actual, not archetypal, clients. However, knowing the client goes beyond defining the decision influencers’ and makers’ titles and roles. It also means knowing the client’s educational background, personal pursuits, association memberships, business goals and how they are measured, the client’s definition of success, and, of course, the client’s pain points.