Mobile Strategy Manager: 3 Action Items to Lift Your ROI

Many mobile strategy managers struggle to better understand the role social advertising plays but what most of you don’t know is how to break out from the clutters.  As a marketing strategist in Northwestern Medill IMC, I have found two articles, which address the subject of lifting return of mobile investment.

According to Pelleri, people spent 80% of their time on apps and only 20% for browsing, which gives a huge opportunity to invest or advertise on mobile. The concept of “Internet of Customers” address the importance of consumers who decide the way that brand should reach them. Hence it is important to avoid negative user experience before you implement any mobile strategy like implanting advertisement or launching an app. Today’s customers want to play an active role in company operation through social media which enable the marketers to listen to real-time and authentic demand.

Daniele Pelleri

12 Things You Can Do Today to Get Your Mobile Strategy off the Ground

Kissmetrics

Astegic https://www.astegic.com/services/mobile-solutions/mobile-strategy

The second article from Bechar addressed the importance of mobile strategy in rebranding process. Marketers should think about firstly if the mobile is a good fit for the brand and target market: the one-fit-all model does not work anymore. Mobile is a good place to put your new logo, new value proposition and new language so make sure to invest on a mobile-friendly and responsive app and acquire more customers.

Gilad Bechar

REBRANDING? DON’T FORGET YOUR MOBILE STRATEGY

Entrepreneur

Based on my review of these 2 articles and relevant studies I have done at Medill IMC, Northwestern University, here are 3 items you should keep in mind whenever you come out with a new mobile strategy. They are:

1.    Engage to Profit – Identify customers pain points in mobile and manage your Omni Channels in the most effective way.

2.    Test before Invest – recruit a sample of participants and test overall usability and ensure the functions and designs are easily understood.

3.   Leverage Personalization Features – Forget about one-size-fits-all strategies and maximize the ability of customization for each user.

The ultimate goal to invest on mobile is to better serve your customers and be a part of their life, not because other brands have launched their mobile plan.

As a storyteller I'm passionate about transforming data into strategy and decisions. I've worked at Advertising Agency to communicate with Mobile, Programmatic Buying and SEO team about Market Research and Talent Acquisition.
Phyllis Chen
@phyllis_xc

Finance Execs: What’s Your Strategy for Marketing to Millennials?

As a financial executive, it's critical you reach a skeptical but vast market - Millennials. As a marketing professional and graduate student in Northwestern University’s Medill Integrated Marketing Communications program (and a Millennial myself) I believe our industry needs to make a greater effort to shape the financial behavior of this generation and acquire life-long customers through social, mobile, and interactive marketing. Those that do will reap a tremendous reward.

A recent FINRA study cited by a CBS news article hits on the scale of the marketplace void: Millennials need financial guidance. Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 have low financial literacy and make unwise financial decisions with regards to lending and credit. Millennials are the first modern generation to carry significant student loan debt and experience poverty and unemployment at higher rates than the two previous American generations (Generation X and the Baby Boomers). And to top it off, the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession has shaped Millennials into what UBS calls “the most financially conservative generation since those raised during the Great Depression.”

But where there is tragedy, alas, there is opportunity. Forbes recently published an article from contributor Patrick Spenner on the “do’s and don’ts” of marketing to Millennials, and the financial services industry should really listen up. Millions of potential customers with a real and urgent need are waiting to be snatched up by financial services firms and advisors. Unfortunately, many companies are failing to connect because they lack an understanding of this unique audience. Brands are still marketing trigger events like marriage and purchasing a home – but how can Millennials think about buying a house when they can’t even get a decent job or have $30,000 in student loan debt? The messaging needs to shift to reach these consumers in a meaningful way.

Based on current research and my experience at Northwestern University, here are three recommendations you should implement immediately:  

1. Develop a Millennial marketing strategy - make sure that it's tailored for this audience, the generation of American’s who got their start during one of the deepest economic recessions the country has ever experienced.
   
2. Utilize social media - companies that make an effort to have a meaningful dialogue with Millennials via social media will be poised to capitalize on this enormous market.
   
3. Develop multimedia creative content - connecting with Millennials in the digital space is going to require creative, data-driven messaging unlike anything that’s been executed in our industry before.
   

The good news is the need is there. Your brand should aim to deliver on this need so that interactions are timely, tailored, educational, compelling, and develop long-term customer loyalty.

As an executive in the financial services industry, now is the time to grow your share of the Millennial market. They’re waiting for you and your organization to help them overcome past (poor) financial decisions and prepare for the future and their eventual retirement. Despite a lack of financial literacy and economic struggles, Millennials are still said to be very optimistic. Capitalize on this optimism, clearly define your brand promise, and connect with these 76 million potential life-long customers.

Jen Colella is a marketing professional with 7 years experience in the financial services industry, including retail banking, mergers and acquisitions, and executive benefits. Her professional experience includes internal corporate communications, public affairs support, creation of marketing collateral, drafting RFP responses and coordinating finalist presentation materials. Jen also has experience in out-of-home static and digital media sales and dabbles in freelance magazine-style journalism; she was published in The Radcliffe Quarterly at Harvard University.

Jen is currently a graduate student of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University’s Medill School, with an expected graduation date of June 2015.

Have questions or comments? Feel free to contact me on Twitter: @jennuimc

Senior Executives: Mobilize your employees to solve business problems

As a senior executive, you look for ways to harness the massive creativity and brainpower of your employees to solve business challenges, like product innovation, customer loyalty, or strategic growth. As a graduate student in Marketing Communications at Northwestern’s Medill School, I have found two articles that help us understand how to mobilize our employees.

Too often your messages to employees are weighed down by impersonal and technical language that leaves employees uninterested in, unmotivated by and confused about how their work improves products, profits, or customer satisfaction. In Corporate Executive Board’s Three ways to move stakeholders to action, Dorian Cundick shares ways to get your employees' immediate attention. Cundick recommends putting your employee's perspective at the center of the message by creating a sense of urgency and "channeling your inner newscaster" to develop attention-grabbing headlines for your message.

Once you've got your employees' attention, Weber Shandwick’s fascinating report on employee advocacy titled Employees Rising outlines how to spur your employees to act. Weber Shandwick segments your employee population by advocacy willingness and potential, sharing ways to motivate your employees to be fully engaged. They note that over half of your employees could be company advocates if you value their ideas, keep them well-informed, and listen and respond to them.

Based on my insights from these articles, I recommend you take these three actions immediately.   

1. Put the employee at the center - Employees spend the day thinking about their work, their families, and their challenges. In order to get their attention, word the message in terms of their needs and business perspective. Moreover, speak specifically on their role in developing the solution. For instance, if the business challenge is financial, replace your financial vernacular with terms that the employees use in their daily work, providing examples of how their work impacts the desired goal.

2. Create an experience - Employees want to feel something, so consider how employees feel about the business challenge. Address those emotions using personal pronouns to communicate that you understand their concerns and problems. And, not every message has to be framed seriously. Find a way to make it fun - poll employees, ask them thought-provoking questions, and if appropriate, make them laugh. If your message reaches an employee’s emotions, they will be more likely to talk about it with other employees thus furthering the creative solutions.


3. Be social - Your company’s internal and external social communities are full of creative solutions to business challenges. Use this existing database to source solutions and to encourage further dialog around a problem. Personally respond to employee ideas on these communities to signal that you value their ideas. As mentioned before, put the employee at the center and create an emotional experience. Your engagement will increase their likelihood to act for the benefit of the company. Not only will your social activity help solve the current business problem, your dialog on social channels can help address future challenges.

Senior executives, think like your employees to encourage creative solutions, and then cultivate these inputs on social channels to show that you value their thoughts. Once they see that their ideas are important to you, they will be ready to go solve the problem. 


 

Posted by Johanna Soyars
I am a communications manager for a Fortune 50 company. I have worked in small businesses and large corporations on change management, employee engagement, and external communications. My time with Sensors Unlimited, Goodrich and UTC has taught be that the fundamentals of people, communications and networks remain the same. I plan to continue on in marketing communications after graduation seeking fresh ways for businesses to gain customer and employee trust. Questions? Contact me through Twitter at @jgsoyars.

RSVP, in english please. (1/5 - Things to Remember for a National Ad Campaign )

While the title is catchy, it really doesn't speak directly to your targeted reader.  I would recommend you re-do the title to something shorter and more pointed to your reader.  Maybe something like "Not Deeply Understanding your Target Markets = Risks and Failures"  Or something like that.

Now, remember we are speaking with a very sophisticated but time compressed audience.  So we need to immediately get their attention and quickly move to your studies.  Therefore, your opening paragraph should be  2 short sentences focused on engaging the target reader and then establishing your expertise on the topic.  I would recommend starting with something like:

While agencies "preach" target markets, the explosion of social, mobile, and web touchpoints makes it imperative to really understand who they are and where they go to get information.  As a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program and an executive with XXXX agency, I have been researching some of the perils of marketing in today's more complex marketplace and have found two articles which offer guidance and directions agency managers need to know.

Now, don't start with step 1 but start with the research.  I would start by discussing the Year of Mobile.  Cite the author and have another link to their site.  Tell the reader about the article in a single paragraph to highlight the key findings from the article.  Keep it short.  Avoid personal stories but keep your analysis of the article in a natural voice...which you are using very well in this document.

PS, one other thing.  It looks like this is a typewriter font.  I would change it to something which looks more modern like Ariel or another newer font.


Step #1 - Know your audience, determine the media, speak their language and they'll respond.

The various media outlets we have at our disposal today allow marketers extraordinaire to e-eavesdrop on our customers.  Finding out where your customers "are", what they're talking about and how they like to communicate are the keys to getting the RSVP you're looking for.
You really don't need the RSVP theme.  Start with the first article.  It looks interesting Don't you hate it when you send out 50 invitations, 5 people respond and 55 people show up? Me too.

Before you lick the stamps and mail the letters figure out who your customers are and THEN invite them to the party.  I manage several national ad campaigns during daylight hours and find it so easy to jump to " The Year of Mobile " when a client asks how they can expand their reach.  I've seen presentations from partners on geo-fencing and call transcription services and these are natural ideas to jump to.  Everyone wants to be invited to the party, right?

Perhaps a mobile campaign IS the right way to go.  Companies like xAd offer both search and banner options that may fit your clients' audience and there are many reasons for a "why wouldn't you do it?" argument...but...getting back to the RSVP...where are your clients? what are they talking about? and, how are you going to get their attention?
While personal stories are interesting, either make this your second article or drop it.  It makes the blog too long and more difficult to read. I was recently involved with a client who conducted a trial with CityGrid for several months.  Previous to this test they believed that their B2B model wasn't a match with advertising on an interactive network, but much to their surprise, it is now their top converting platform with conversion rates in double-digit excess of their other efforts.  Why?  Well, it turns out that people who are faithful CityGrid users (CitySearch.com, UrbanSpoon.com etc.) are the same customers our client is looking for.  They like food, they like eating and apparently they like reading advertisements while they're at it.

It isn't a novel concept, I know.  But I'm a bit of a traditionalist (and, yes, I keep Emily Post on hand).  Once you find your guests and pick out the best invitation, attract them with a message that sounds like them (skip the photos of your dinner/cocktail/dessert please).  They want to know about how awesome the party is going to be, and how going to the party will do so much for their social status.

Cutting-edge technologies and new media platforms can drive insane results...or, they can fail to provide any calls, clicks, emails, "likes", pokes or tweets because your customers aren't there [yet].  Stay tuned for steps 2/5 of Things to Remember for a National Ad Campaign...and remember, know your audience, determine the media, speak their language and they'll respond.
This should be your second article.  Structure the blog to have the first article, the graphic, and then the second article assessment.  Tell the executive what you want him/her to understand from the article.  If you like it, they will like to know what you found. This post was written by Christina Kellman - Interactive Strategy

After the 2 sentence intro, the second paragraph on article one, the graphic, the third paragraph on article two, now you are ready for the action items.

Start with something like "From these two articles and my studies at Northwestern, here are three action items I recommend you initiate.

THEN, give them 3 bullet points.  They most be short [2-3 words] and really memorable.  Draw them from the two articles.  After each bullet point, you can put a dash and then a single sentence of explanation.  No more than that.

THEN, give us a great, short summary paragraph.  1-2 sentences.  Encourage the reader to act on the three action items and tell them the benefit.

Then you have your personal paragraph.   Try this format and, when you are happy, publish it and let's get testing.


Christina Kellman is an Interactive Media Manager in Orange County, CA. In addition to her active role with the agency, she is in the midst of obtaining her master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University’s Medill School. Want to Follow her on Twitter?

Three Ways to Tick off Your Executive with Data Analysis

In 2011, data-driven marketing is hot. Wait, really? As a graduate student in the Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern, I worked with a company on a project of customer database consolidation and analysis during the summer residency. However, the management team was not that into data. Why? If you are an analyst with the same problem, you may have done one of these things to tick your executive off: 

"Huge potential profit is hidden in the customer data. It's a gold reef!" You were trying to persuade the CMO, "$50000 and 4 months. We'll discover impactful consumer insight and segment our target." 
 With those words, your gold would stay deeply buried for another century. Data analysis requires investment of money, time and human resource. Proposing without an objective linked to the $ sign is the easiest way to kill it in the cradle. 

"We did an ANOVA test and confirmed that the difference is statistically significant." You were reporting the progress of the project. The CMO frowned but you were excited about your finding and didn't notice, "The survival analysis shows that overcharge for text message is a trigger event for churn rate."

Yes, don't ever talk in plain words because that doesn't show your expertise. Analysts are too awesome for normal people to understand -- That thought is the second stab to your analysis.

            "The data is telling a different story. The plan was not worth trying. " You were persuading the CMO to abandon the new marketing plan.

            "I've been working in the industry for 20 years and I'm telling you that this will be the hot topic in 5 years. The plan is launching next week and I want the timeline on my desk within tomorrow." Your CMO left, and slammed the door close.                 

           Don't involve him in the process; don't encourage him to discover any truth from the data by himself. That guarantees your analysis to be dumped in the trash bin.

           Now here are the 3 things you don't do if you want buy-in from your executive: Don't forget to mention the monetary return; don't talk in jargons; don't throw the conclusion at him.

Mina Zhou, Northwestern Medill IMC2011, Twitter: @Mina_Zhou9