1. Use technology to support a market differentiation strategy

Be focused and committed to one ideal and you will stand out. Too many companies are racing towards sameness with an arms race of copy-cat features. It’s difficult to build brand affinity if customers can’t tell you a part.  Examples that come to mind are LBS vendors (though I seem them taking diverging strategies now) and the Google and Facebook social network competition.

2. Become adept at using Google+.

Your presence on Google+ will be rewarded with a higher search ranking. It’s no surprise Google favors it’s own social outposts over others (what happened to “Do no Evil?”).  Be sure to fill in “Current Employment” with the most interesting content because that’s what people see when they roll over your image.

How to find people on Google+

• Findpeopleonplus.com
• Group.as

Lastly, if you’re in a regulated industry your access to Facebook and Twitter is likely blocked or limited. However, corporate IT departments are more likely to keep Google properties open. If you’re selling into regulated markets, Google+ could be the best avenue for reaching your audience.

3. Focus your technology on three segments

Top of the Funnel

1. Content is king (blog posts, videos, etc)
2. Social media
3. Online Marketing (PPC, SEO)
4. Referrals, Partners

Middle of the Funnel

1. Create custom campaigns for hot, warm, and cold leads
2. Personalization is key
3. Make every touch relevant and useful

Bottom of the funnel

1. Automate sales stage communications
2. Provide supporting evidence
3. Welcome customers (make it personal and relevant)
4. Be systematic about every decision

4. QR code scanning has not reached mass adoption, so continue to pilot. [YMMV]

The Celtics noticed recorded that at an outreach event there were two subscription options: digital with QR codes and analog with a paper sign up sheet.  Here were the scores:

QR code scans = 100

Paper sign ups: +1,500

The Celtics found that a simple paper sign up was a simpler choice for events, but that doesn’t mean QR codes are bad – your mileage may vary.

5. Tools + Tactics – Strategy = Chaos

Make sure you have a plan. I recommend Forrester’s POST strategy framework. Infusionsoft provides this template to help map out your tactics.

6  Want to build a twitter following?

• Tweet a lot of links and don’t be overly conversational.
• Click through rates increase with tweet scarcity; don’t crowd out your own content.
• Click through rates are higher on Saturday and Sunday when there is less tweet volume.
• Don’t be afraid to identify yourself as an authority.
• Be positive, people shy away from negativity.
• Ask for a RT, but don’t be annoying.

7. Have a mobile strategy that converts searches to revenue

70% of mobile searches lead to action within one hour, is your mobile strategy capturing that potential?

Kendall Jackson was held out as an example of doing mobile right. They have SMS, QR codes and URLs on bottle tags – let your customer pick the tools. Don’t force them to adapt to you.

8. How much content is enough?

I thought this was a great question for Chris Brogan. His answer was an eye-opener:

1. Post 2-3 times a week to maintain an audience
2. Post 2-3 times a day to grow an audience

9. Updated Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) metric

[important]Social CLV = Word of mouth referrals + new sales idea + customer support savings[/important]

Many wrestle with how to measure social efforts, the above was provided by Clara Shih and I think it provides a good strategy to define metrics from.

10. I’m leaving this one up to you, what was your Marketing Technology take-away from IMS?

Hit me back in the comments.

Day 1 morning notes

Day 1 afternoon notes

Day 2 morning notes

Uncovering The Science Behind Viral Marketing with David Skok

• Best business model is low cost of customer acquisition (COCA) and high lifetime value (LTV)
• The viral loop: customer sees your app –> tries it –> decides whether to share –> creates and invitation –> friend receives –> friend decides whether to look
• K = the Viral Coefficient
  • k = # invites x conversion rate x
• [important]Shortening the cycle time has a far bigger effect than changing the Viral coefficient[/important]
• See full presentation here.

The basics of virality

• What is the viral hook – what makes people want to share content?
  • Something very compelling that the user wants to share
  • Something of value
    • Applications
    • Educational content
    • Data
    • Things of monetary value
  • Something entertaining
    • Humor
    • Games
  • News
  • Inherently Viral Services
• Content or Product/Service
  • Has to be a FREE product service, not cheap.  FREE!
• Seeding
  • The bigger your initial seeding the better
  • Paid seeding – there are companies that provide such services
• Spread through Communications Networks
  • Use reshare buttons
  • What you want: low effort for user to share. social, email, etc…
• Refreshing and re-seeding
  • Google Search: paid and organic

Why do people share?

1. High arousal, Positive (awe)
2. High arousal, Negative (anger)
3. Low arousal, de-activating (sadness)

How to Optimize Virality

• Optimize your sales funnel
• Get inside your customers head
  • what are they not doing what you want them to do?
  • figure out what motivates them
  • create a solution that entices them
• Look for ways to get your customers to tell their friends about you
• Hybrid viral = added some virality to your existing content; good not great, but better than nothing

Info at: http://forEntrepreneurs.com

The Future of Mobile Marketing

What is mobile marketing?

• Most intimate device ever invented.  It knows more about you than any other device
• Develop mobile ads for mobile devices
• Information is very actionable, 30% of restaurant searches are done via mobile
• 70% of mobile searches lead to action within one hour
• URL has to go to a mobile landing page (otherwise you burned a prospect – perhaps for life)
• Examples of excellence
  • Kendall Jackson wine – next tag has a QR code, URL and SMS: Offer is a pairing geo located to local tastes
  • Use SMS, QR, Short codes AND URLs – different people use different tools
• Watermarking is the ability to see an invisible bar code

Developments In SEO: What Every Marketer Should Know with Dharmesh Shah

• 46% of daily searches are for products/services
• 70% of links in search are organic  – not paid
• Best thing to do for SEO is create great content

• Goal: increase SEO to reduce your PPC
• Search and social together – social discussions are used to personalize search results (signals of quality)
• Search isn’t competitive game, you need to beat others, ergo your social efforts enhance your visibility (more than your competitors)
• Google+ will likely result higher in search results
• Another value of sharable results is that you can see which of your friends have shared the content (or not) drives higher click thru rate
• Google Panda update removed crap from search results
• If your marketing is broken, don’t automate it. TRANSFORM IT
• Forget b2b and focus on b2h(uman)
• [warning]Call to action: rethink how we market, even the touchier/feelier upgraded marketing[/warning]

Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard with author Dan Heath

[important]Change is hard[/important]

We have two brains
1 – rational conscious deliberate
2- emotional unconscious automatic

• Emotion is like an elephant, the elephant drives us
• There is a rider on the elephant
• For example, a diet is hard because the rider is barely in control of the elephant

3 part framework for change

1- Direct The Rider

• Analyzing problems comes naturally to us, analyzing success doesn’t
• Psychologists say: “Bad is stronger than good”
• Find the bright spots – obsess over success and figure out how to replicate it
• Information can be TBU – true but useless
• Instead, find what’s working today despite the obstacles and do more of that

2 – Motivate The Elephant

• Need to induce acceptance in those we want to accept the change
• We typically start by explaining the change
• Instead, speak to the emotional elephant
• Change comes from feeling

How do you convince colleagues to change?

• Spreadsheets don’t work. Tangible, evidence that people connect to does work
• How we think change works: analyze –> think –> change
• [important]How change actually works: see –> feel –> change[/important]

3 –Shape The Path

• Being specific with instructions significantly increases the likelihood of change
• Ultimate Example: Amazon’s Buy now with 1-click
• Have you 1-clickified what change you want to drive?
• Example: stand up meetings combat long meetings
• At work: remove obstacles and make change easy
• Make “yes” the path of least resistance

Day 1 morning notes

Day 1 afternoon notes

The Art of Enchantment with Guy Kawasaki

[important]Three pillars of Enchantment = likability, trustworthiness, quality[/important]

1. Achieve Likability
   1. Dress for a tie
      1. Under-dressing = “I don’t respect you”

      2. Over-dressing “I am better than you”

      3. Equal-dressing “we’re peers”

   2. Make a Duchenne smile – uses both eyes and mouth muscles – you want crows feet

2. Achieve Trustworthiness

   1. Trustworthiness

   2. Trust others before they will trust you

   3. Examples: Amazon (not to return the book after reading) , Zappos (free shipping both ways, Nordstrom

   4. Bake, don’t eat

      1. Eater sees the world as a zero-sum game

      2. Baker sees the world as expanding – we can all eat more

      3. Bakers are more trusted than eaters

   5. Default to “yes”

3. Perfect
   1. Create DICEE products/services
      1. Deep, Intelligent, Complete, Empowering, Elegant
   2. It’s easier to enhance with a great product instead of crap
   3. Make it short, sweet and swallowable
   4. Conduct a pre-mortem – prepare for failure, list out factors and then start mitigating the potential problems
4. Launch
   1. Tell a story
   2. Plant many seeds
   3. Marketing 1.0 suck up to NYT, CNet, WSJ, etc
   4. Marketing 2.0 connect with people
   5. Use salient points
      1. Miles/gallon vs. Yearly costs (what people care about)
      2. Dollars vs. Months of food
      3. Gigabytes vs Number of songs
5. Endure
   1. build an ecosystem
   2. invoke reciprocation
   3. enable people to pay you back
6. Overcome resistance
   1. Provide social proof – like Apple’s white ear buds became a visible evidence
   2. Agree on something
   3. Enchant all the influencers
7. Present
   1. Customize the introduction
   2. Sell your dream – iPhone <> $188 parts + AT&T
   3. 10 slides in 20 minutes using 20
8. Use technology
   1. Remote the speed bumps – Example: Captucha
   2. Provide value: information, insights, assistance
   3. Engage – answer email within 48 hours
   4. Fast, frequent, fast
   5. Prototype fast
9. How to Enchant employees
   1. Provide a MAP – mastery, autonomy, purpose
   2. Empower action
   3. Suck it up – get dirty
10. ?

The Science of Social Media with Dan Zarella

• Things don’t become “viral” because they are good or bad
• Memetics – the study of why ideas spread
• Zanerella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: Exposure | Attention | Motivation

Optimizing exposure (extending reach)

• [error]Myth “engaging in the conversation” is the most important thing in social media[/error]
  • Highly followed accounts
  • aren’t conversational
  • tweet a lot of links
• More Facebook conversation does not mean more views
• Conversation doesn’t build reach you need to share interesting content
• Accounts who don’t have pictures don’t get followed
• [error]Myth “Don’t call yourself a guru”[/error]
• • Identify yourself authoritatively
• Self promotion doesn’t build followers, don’t talk about yourself
• People shy away from negativity, don’t be a jerk
  • Popular content: positive, learning, media
• Regarding influence: Quantity is more important than quality

Attention

• CTR increase with tweet scarcity – don’t crowd out your own content
• Let your content breath
• [error]Myth: Friday, Saturday and Sunday are bad days to tweet [/error]
  • CTR much higher on Saturdays and Sunday
  • Less volume of traffic means your message is more likely to get through
  • Experiment with Saturdays and Sundays
  • Use contra-competitve timing

Motivation

• Performance
  • You are working to establish your reputation
  • Every exchange is a transfer of value.  The more value received, the more likely you are to exchange again
• Scarcity
  • Rumors spread in an information void
  • Use novel words to stand out
  • In times of crisis don’t let rumors spread – communicate
  • Use information voids. Find out what people are talking about your keywords. If people are talking about your keywords, blog about that topic and tweet it.
• Sharing
  • [error]Myth: Please ReTweet doesn’t work[/error]
  • Please ReTweet get 3x more RTs
  • Don’t forget social sharing

Take Your Marketing to the Next Level With Social CRM with Jon Ferrara, Larry Augustin and Brent Leary

• What is social CRM?
  • Integrate with your contacts and calendar to provide one cohesive platform
  • Allows you to act purposefully
  • Future: email, social, calendaring tools are integrated
  • Empowering your employees to connect internally
  • Connecting with customers where they are
  • Analyzing data and making customer-centric decisions
  • It’s an updated way of picking up social clues.  Instead of seeing the pictures on your office wall, you look at the pictures on their Facebook wall
  • Communicating the way people want to communicate

Other thoughts

• No one puts in activities into CRM, they just put in what they must get reported on
• Tear down walls between sales, marketing, customer service to have better conversations w/ customers
• Well executed CRM provides a much better customer experience – Can this be a competitive advantage
• You don’t need to just support prospects but also the influencers. Develop communities that allow customers to be part of the company. Nurture that community

If you missed parts of the 2011 Inbound Marketing Summit here’s some of the best take-aways. Here are the morning notes.

Boston Sports Shootout with Peter Stringer and Ann Zeigler

• Interact with fans in a open and interactive forum – be where your customers are
• Engaging with fans by listening to what they need
• Red Sox goal: Our social media goal is to capitalize on the opportunity to engage fans in a transparent, public dialogue.  This daily interaction allows the organization to enhance the experience of all Red Sox fans; from the casual to the die-hard.
• Red Sox reach:
  • 138,706 Twitter fans
  • 2,897,000 fans on Facebook;
  • 78% of fans are not local
• The news coverage model has really changed, if reporters aren’t on social media they are missing out.
• The @celtics realize that everyone is a journalist these days including the players
• Stringer thinks press releases will be dead in the next year
• When you have 2 million followers you are your own publisher
• Celtics don’t track metrics, but then again they are the 2nd largest followed sports team on Facebook
• Your fans become customers
• With so many fans and interactions, you can’t control the comments, and the insults don’t last long. However, sports community managers do monitor for complaints so they can be addressed quickly
• One challenge is how to manage response.  Ideally the customer service people are on twitter/facebook and respond personally. This gets noise off the normal brand channel.
• Stringer doesn’t find value in LBS checkins. Avg of only 100 checkins at a Celtics game. Service issues reduce the value of mobile apps. Lastly the fan base is larger than just people in the stands.
• Celtics aren’t seeing traffic with QR codes, paper sign-ins garnered 1,500 new names, QR scans just 100

7 Habits of Highly Successful Facebook-era Marketers: Lessons from the Field with Clara Shih

• 2011 is the year of social media execution in Fortune 100
• Facebook Connect extends identity across the web
• 73% of surveyed CMOs list social media as high priority this year
• Our individual capital grows in accordance with our network size
• You can connect with more people with fewer messages via segmentation,  targeting and positioning
• Transitive trust – before web 2.0 marketers could not use the power of transitive trust because the social graph.  Marketers can use refer a friend programs

7 Habits of Highly Successful Facebook-era Marketers

1. Target your message – use what you know about potential customers: sell your product/service to those interested
2. Know when to use which medium – consider using Facebook for frequent communications and in some cases your primary web presence
3. Be human, be authentic – people don’t want to connect with a logo
4. Invest in killer content – talk about your brand, at most, 1/5 posts, build content that the customer needs
5. Evolve your metrics – you can quantify social, but the end of the day you just need it; new metrics should be related to business goals. Social CLV is an updated form of CLV.
   1. Social CLV = Word of mouth referrals + new sales idea + customer support savings
6. Don’t go it alone – Use digital agencies to kick start ideas
7. Have fun and keep learning – Examples Pizza Hut & Farmers.
   1. Pizza Hut embedded the pizza ordering order in Facebook because customers didn’t want to click off the Facebook page
   2. Farmers put the Farmers blimp into Farmville as a virtual good

Video Content Creation Made Easy with Steve Garfield and Nick Saber

• How much content do you need? 2-3 pieces to maintain your audience; 2-3 pieces a day to grow your audience

• Site Recordsetter is used to record the record

Redefining Influence – Panel Discussion

What is influence?

1. The power that influences a person or a course of events
2. Influence is about decision making. If you trust the person communicating, they have influence over your decision
3. Mainstream influentials are on Facebook, the are your friends, not in major networks blog
4. The ability to influence other people naturally
5. Influence is a number like number of RT, number of actions
6. Not a popularity contest. Trust the subject matter expert.
7. Impact of what marketers do. It’s about originality

Creating The Perfect Customer Lifecycle: How To Convert More Leads And Boost Repeat Sales In Your Business with Greg Head

• The old days were “a little too simple”. Older marketing models were PUSH. Almost no marketing data. Was much easier to connect biz tactics to growth.
• Typical customer Lifecycle: Leads –> Prospects –> Customers
• How do you scale? Double your spend? Double your marketing and sales staff?
• Focusing on tactics while ignoring strategy leads to holes in your funnel

Gaps in the funnel:

1. Lost traffic
2. Lost leads
3. Lost customers

Be clear about your plan to make every move count

[important]Tools + Tactics – Strategy = Chaos[/important]

Perfect customer lifecycle

1. Traffic Attraction Strategies
   1. Content is king (blog posts, videos, etc)
   2. Social media
   3. Online Marketing (PPC, SEO)
   4. Referrals, Partners
2. Capture Leads
3. Lead Nurture Strategies
   1. Create custom campaigns for hot, warm, and cold leads
   2. Personalization is key
   3. Make every relevant and useful
4. Sales Conversion Strategies
   1. Automate sales stage communications
   2. Proactive handle objections
   3. Provide supporting evidence
5. Wowing Customer Strategies
   1. Welcome customers (make it personal and relevant)
   2. Be systematic about every decision
6. Upsell Strategies
   1. Upsell or cross sell later in the relationship
   2. Offer upsell products during ____
7. Referral Strategies
   1. Ask for referrals – and track them
   2. Partners, customers, networking
   3. Testimonials and social promotion

Create a M.A.P. – Marketing Automation Plan to gain efficiencies

Download the template and workbook at http://www.infusionsoft.com/pcl

The Revolution Will Be Tweeted – What the Middle East Revolt Means to Marketers with Larry Liebert and Allen Bonde

(The presentation had nothing to do about the Middle East)

Five rules for success

1. Story > Source
2. Sharing > Views
   1. Create content that want to be shared
3. Medium <> Message
   1. The message of caring about customers must be cared across channels and being authentic
4. Community Builds Commerce
   1. TripAdvisor does a great job of providing community with tools that help share content. Engaging content creates reach which drives sales
5. Know your Capital
   1. Curation + Programming + Distribution = Capital

Accidental Billionaires: The Real Story Behind Facebook with Ben Mezrich

• Had to read two books a week before he could watch TV
• Had a janitor write him a rejection letter after finding his manuscript in the trash
• Hung out at The Crossroads a MIT-dive bar where he met mostly young Asians who always had $100 bills
• The MIT Blackjack club lasted 25 years. It was passed down from class to class