Posts Tagged ‘ Tips ’

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Points of View is our blog dedicated to exploring the critical corporate communications issues of the day through insights and videos of Fortune 500 business and communications execs, industry insiders and our team.

Michael Gale

Part 1: Integration Matters


August 10th, 2011

Why one + one is not proper integrated sales and marketing

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

“Integration” is a hot term driven by a combination of seven environmental factors. I contend that “integration” means creating a consistent experience across the customer’s interaction with the brand. The challenge is that it is often siloed into one-on-one situations that aren’t tracked. For example, a customer service agent on the phone might not know that a customer has tried to return an item to the store three times.

The true catalyst of integration evolves around understanding and embracing the value of a customer’s engagement. Experience and evidence shows us that the fully engaged digital and social B2B and B2C brands are the only ones that can fully deliver the promise of integration. Without embracing this philosophy, organizations appear somewhat doomed to poke around the promise of integration.

Digital and social brands that embrace integration reap far more benefits from customer journey-based integration because they get the double-edged opportunity to react faster to market changes, and gain insights ahead of the competition. This is based on managing the customer’s journey and leveraging social and digital as the engagement mechanism.

A Set of POVs to Drive Your Future

In a series of points of views over the next few months we are going to walk through what it takes to be truly integrated, and not just with one or two functions, but across a wide range. We have seen evidence in best practices that the pressure to do social and digital “right” is even greater than before. A limited perspective (one + one) will miss the wider and more effective opportunity.

One + One is Not Really Integration

Integrated online and offline, integrated online and social, integrated sales and channel, integrated media and marketing, integrated communications and brand: These are the marketing (and sometimes sales-based) marriages, especially inside B2B, we increasingly hear about. We call this integration, the integration of one + one. One function plus another bonding together at some point in the customer’s journey. This is a start, but it really is an old world way of thinking and taking advantage of integration.

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Bill Feldman

The New CEO and the Power of Symbolism


August 2nd, 2011

In counseling a new CEO recently on the importance of the First 100 days, we encountered a familiar challenge.

ceo

The CEO’s organization, while successful, needs change. Old attitudes and outmoded ways of doing things have become encrusted, and the first hundred days represent a unique opportunity to break those molds at a time when change is almost universally expected and the organization is likely to be most receptive to it.

At the same time, skeptics within the organization are likely to doubt the new CEO’s fidelity to the organization’s core principles. They will almost certainly (though incorrectly) view the change as undermining those principles – and, though they surely won’t admit it, threatening to themselves and to their careers. These skeptics are especially likely to be clustered in a part of the organization most closely associated with carrying out the organization’s mission, and physically separated from the corporate headquarters.

This isn’t unusual. Consider, for example, the skepticism with which journalists at the Wall Street Journal greeted Rupert Murdoch’s takeover, or the people at IBM first reacted to the first CEO to come from outside the company. And, to be fair, the skepticism isn’t always unjustified.

In situations like this, one of the most powerful tools in the new CEO’s arsenal is symbolism. All CEO’s have a mandate for change – some more than others, to be sure, but studies show significant change, especially in strategy and in the leadership team is almost universally expected.

But some change is especially symbolic, and either by design or by accident will send a powerful and lasting message. It’s vitally important that the new CEO seize opportunities to send these symbolic messages, and avoid sending the wrong ones inadvertently. And don’t confuse “symbolic” with “superficial.” It is the substance of these key actions that makes them symbolic.

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PulsePoint Group

The Weekly Pulse: 2/23/11


February 24th, 2011

A recap of the previous week’s POV posts:

2/23: PulsePoint Group Corporate Communication Index Seres Part 6: Change (video): Bob Feldman, partner at PulsePoint Group, provides commentary on the firm’s recently released Corporate Communication Index Study. This is the sixth in a series of videos where he provides insight into the findings.

2/9: “Translating” Innovative Ideas for Clients: As a strategic consulting firm, counsel is only as good as it is palatable to our clients. Some might interpret that as requiring that we supply strategic insight that adds value to our clients. While that is at the core of what we do, it isn’t what I am referring to. What I mean is that a great idea can’t penetrate an organization if it isn’t delivered in a way its people can readily understand.

2/4: Instilling Practical Innovation in the Enterprise: Much of the recent discussion surrounding innovation in the enterprise has been geared towards consumer-facing aspects of the business: crowdsourcing new product ideas, engaging the consumer in experiential marketing, or even asking the consumer to develop advertising or mobile applications for the business. While these are all innovative ways to engage the consumer and garner some relatively cheap attention, business leaders often find themselves relying on “tried and true” examples of innovation, rather than harnessing it from within their organization.

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Jesse Jacks

“Translating” Innovative Ideas for Clients


February 9th, 2011

As a strategic consulting firm, counsel is only as good as it is palatable to our clients. Some might interpret that as requiring that we supply strategic insight that adds value to our clients. While that is at the core of what we do, it isn’t what I am referring to.

businessman

What I mean is that a great idea can’t penetrate an organization if it isn’t delivered in a way its people can readily understand. If this sounds simple, you are right, it is. But the fact remains that too often great ideas and their potential impact on the organization are plagued by clumsy deliveries. The hand-off of a great idea from the professional service firm to the client should be treated as important as the idea itself, its future impact on the organization depends on it.

How many innovative ideas fall by the wayside not because they weren’t able to make a difference to the enterprise, but because the execution of their delivery was ignored? It’s an impossible question to answer, but it makes one wonder how different things could be had someone taken the time to carefully consider the concept before presenting their idea to the client.

Some things to consider when transferring a great idea to a client might include framing the end result in a way the client understands. Working backwards from a desired outcome to the idea itself isn’t a novel idea, but often times we take for granted the fact that we understand the impact the idea can have on the organization, while the client might be looking at it from a different point of view. But even this might not be going far enough. It makes more sense to work alongside the client in communicating the idea in a manner that their team can easily comprehend. So why is it that we don’t practice this more often?

This week on Harvard Business Review’s blog there is a great post on “Delivering Your Innovative Ideas” by Michael Schrage. He shares with readers his own experience in working with Procter & Gamble’s R&D team and watching as one of their managers “translates” his ideas for the team. Understanding how the client views your idea is every bit as important as how you envision it. If there is any chance of a great idea turning into the change that it was meant to lead, then this translation is every bit as important as the creativity that inspired it to begin with.

You can read Schrage’s account of the team at P&G interpreting his idea here.

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PulsePoint Group

The Weekly Pulse: 2/2/11


February 2nd, 2011

A recap of the previous week’s POV posts:

2/1: Can You Be Both a Tactician and a Counselor? (PRWeek): Research among CEOs and line-of-business executives reveals that the single-most common criticism of communications professionals is that below the CCO level the function is primarily occupied by tacticians. A common result: when divisional or business unit leadership meet to discuss strategy, the PR person — perhaps other than the CCO — is often left out.

1/31: Extend Social Media Beyond Communications and Marketing: We’ve seen many companies struggle with the question of who “owns” social media. In one sense, you are communicating to customers, so it must be a marketing function. But, isn’t marketing usually “paid” and communications “earned?” If so, most social media profiles are “free,” so it must be a communications function! Well, we’ve seen the most successful social media companies embrace both and use cross-divisional teams to find manage the space.

1/28: Crowdsourcing, Innovation, and … the Home Shopping Network?: Anyone who watched the President’s State of the Union address this week may have noticed the many times he used the word “innovate” throughout his hour-long speech. The morning after, many op-eds complained that for all the talk of “out-innovating” the rest of the world, the President didn’t provide any concrete examples of how he envisioned America achieving this. According to a new article on Mashable, 2011′s focus on driving innovation may have an unlikely leader in the Home Shopping Network (HSN), as their new crowdsourcing project suggests.

1/27: A Case for Social Media Access at the Office: It’s an oft-discussed question in many IT departments and beyond: should employees have unrestricted access to the internet (including all the social networking they can get their hands on) while at work? A recent SocialCast report suggests that there might just be a productivity bump to be had from such access.


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PulsePoint Group

The Weekly Pulse: 1/26/11


January 26th, 2011

A recap of the previous week’s POV posts:

1/26: PulsePoint Group Corporate Communication Index Series Part 5: Managing Talent (video): Bob Feldman, partner at PulsePoint Group, provides commentary on the firm’s recently released Corporate Communication Index Study. This is the fifth in a series of videos where he provides insight into the findings.

1/25: LinkedIn Maps: Your Professional Universe Visualized: Have you ever wondered what your personal network looks like? Well now you can see it. Yesterday, LinkedIn launched InMaps an experimental project that creates a visualization of the connections within your business network.

1/24: Foursquare Grew 3400% Last Year: Foursquare had a big year in 2010. The company experienced 3400% growth in “check-ins” with a total of 381,576,305, and there was at least one “check-in” in every country in the world, including North Korea. We even saw the first “check-in” from space at the International Space Station on October 22, 2010.

1/21: Placing Open Innovation in the Professional Services Industry: A clear trend emerged in business over the last decade: the rise of “open innovation.” Forerunners in the practice of utilizing third parties in creating, developing, and disseminating innovative business practices and products include Dell, having introduced and successfully integrated their IdeaStorm platform to drive new product development, and Starbucks, which followed suit with My Starbucks Idea, garnering yet more feedback from customers looking to enhance their personal experience with the company.

1/20: The Continuing Evolution of Employee Engagement: Mashable recently featured a piece by Soren Gordhamer, founder of the Wisdom 2.0 Conference, on the evolution of the enterprise in the age of social media. It’s a fascinating read, here, but there were two things I wanted to point a spotlight on here.

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PulsePoint Group

The Weekly Pulse: 1/19/11


January 19th, 2011

A recap of the previous week’s POV posts:

1/19: Grammys Go Social – Will It Improve Ratings?: The music industry continues to be at the forefront of social media innovation and excellence. Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Rhiana are Twitter legends and music videos continue to be the most-viewed videos on the web.

1/17: PulsePoint Group Corporate Communication Index Series Part 4- Governance (video): Watch Bob Feldman, partner at PulsePoint Group, provide commentary on the firm’s recently released Corporate Communication Index Study. This is the fourth in a series of videos where he provides insight into the findings.

1/15: Eight Communication Traps that Foil Innovation: Clients often ask us about best practices in corporate communications and for examples of how best-in-class organizations implement them. These engagements vary depending on the client’s needs and their industry, but one constant is the need to benchmark those organizations that are among the first to transform emerging communications practices into core competencies.

1/14: Trendstream Study Finds Consumer Trust in Social Networking Contacts on the Rise: Trendstream, the UK-based digital consultancy, has released its 2011 Web Index, available here.  It provides a thoroughly interesting, in-depth look at the evolution of social media engagement that observes a growing trend toward social networks and users as qualifiers and distributors of “professional” content, with individual content creation on the decline. I wanted to take a minute to point out one thing that really jumped out at me.

1/13: Tips on Writing Strong Social Media Content: There is a lot of social media advice out there and it can be tough to know where to start. You should definitely develop a strategy and do some planning before launching, but don’t let extensive planning and the need for perfection prevent you from getting started. Here are five tips that you can use now to create content for a social media program, even in a large organization.

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Jesse Jacks

Eight Communication Traps that Foil Innovation


January 14th, 2011

Clients often ask us about best practices in corporate communications and for examples of how best-in-class organizations implement them. These engagements vary depending on the client’s needs and their industry, but one constant is the need to benchmark those organizations that are among the first to transform emerging communications practices into core competencies.

mediascape1

One such practice is helping to drive innovation throughout the organization via the communications function. In PulsePoint Group’s Corporate Index Survey, completed late in 2010, we found that the overwhelming majority of organizations cited innovation as a primary focus in the next 3-5 years, over two-thirds of respondents stated they were only moderately active or less in supporting innovative activities.

As more communications teams strive to add value to their organizations by finding new ways of tying themselves directly to business objectives, supporting the organization through driving innovation will become an increasingly vital role for the comms professional. As such, Harvard Business Review has just published a terrific piece on how companies can avoid the pitfalls that companies often fall victim to when embarking on innovative directives. It is a great accompaniment to the communications professional wary of trying something new only to stumble out of the gate.

Read the full post here

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Renée Francese

Tips on Writing Strong Social Media Content


January 13th, 2011

There is a lot of social media advice out there and it can be tough to know where to start. You should definitely develop a strategy and do some planning before launching, but don’t let extensive planning and the need for perfection prevent you from getting started. Here are five tips that you can use now to create content for a social media program, even in a large organization. But, before you launch, make sure you have buy-in on all of these rules from key stakeholders. If not, you’ll face an uphill battle after you are already active.

content-creation

1. Be Transparent

When it comes to social media, the best content is transparent and honest. I believe this is the most important tip when writing social media content.

For example, if your company is running a contest, post the terms and conditions. Clearly state who can participate and what constitutes a violation. You can be sure before someone “Likes” your page or follows your blog, they are going to want to know your company can be trusted. And if you write something that turns out to be false, blow the whistle on yourself and make it right.

2. Be Helpful

This tip is especially true if your company is interacting with consumers. Companies who help their customers get talked about (i.e. Best Buy, Home Depot). On that same note, companies who fall short and aren’t able to deliver solutions get talked about. It is important to set clear expectations here. If you don’t have the bandwidth to respond to everyone, then make it clear how they can contact you for help. Managing expectations will help you help your customers. However, a good rule of thumb is if you respond to a problem, you own it.

3. Speak in Your Brand’s Language

It’s essential that everything you say online “sound” like your brand. If you are in a role that requires you to be active online, it’s crucial you are familiar with your company’s “brand speak.” Additionally, third parties that consult on behalf of your company need to be educated on your brand’s colloquial tone. Skittles does an excellent job of posting statuses that are unique and truly resonate with the brand. The statuses average 1,000 comments and over 10,000 likes.

skittles

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PulsePoint Group

The Weekly Pulse: 1/12/11


January 12th, 2011

Every Wednesday we are going to recap the previous week’s POV posts. Check out our first installment of the “The Weekly Pulse:”

1/4: “Checking In” at Locations is so 2010: If you pride yourself on snagging the best deals, be sure to check out, or rather “in,” to your favorite brands. “Checking in” is no longer restricted to physical locations. Today, people are checking into their favorite books, movies and of course brands. It’s just another way to define yourself via the web or your phone.

1/4: PulsePoint Group Corporate Communication Index Series Part 3: Deeper Role: Bob Feldman, partner at PulsePoint Group, provides commentary on the firm’s recently released Corporate Communication Index Study. This is the third in a series of videos where he provides insight into the findings. Be sure to check out his first and second video.

1/5: Mobile Matters More in 2011: The Consumer Electronics Show is about to kick-off in Las Vegas and industry watchers are expecting hundreds of exciting, new gadgets to wow tech lovers. Most of these new “consumer electronics” will probably fall short, but a few will inevitably spur major attention and revenue.

1/10: Your Social Media Agency Walks the Walk… But Can They Talk the Talk?: It’s important to select a strong social media agency because your agency will:

  1. Help you integrate your social media program into the larger marketing or communications plan.
  2. Train and build the skills of your internal team.
  3. Get the most out of increasing social media budgets.

1/11: Twitter Goes Casual: Twitter users frequently abbreviate and misspell words in order to adhere to the 140-character limit. A new study from Carnegie Mellon University shows that there are regional differences in how users choose to shorten words.

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