We stumbled on an interesting video interview with Amber Naslund today. Naslund is the co-author of "The Now Revolution" with Jay Baer, a book which reviews how to develop a "horizontal strategy" around social media. The book goes beyond a social media "how-to" by exploring the structural adaptations that need to take place within an organization for it to take advantage of the real-time business opportunities that social media affords.

As Naslund explains in the following interview with Behind the Brand's Brian Elliott, there are an excess of tactical social media resources out there, but not many outline what to do when you've already established a successful social media presence. Another way to think about it is how you can become a social business vs. one that just "does" social media.

Naslund recommends "slowing down", and taking a more holistic approach. Businesses need to consider the deep impact of social media on all departments, including but not limited to PR, customer service and product development, using these to build a horizontal, company-wide strategy vs. a narrow vertical one.

Naslund goes into a bit more detail in the interview around the concept of "wayfarers" in business and social media, arguing that social media evangelists have a responsibility to question the status quo. She reasons that  "if you want to do something new, the path to that is not on the existing map". She also provides some insights into the ongoing "social media ROI" debate, and argues that the single reason that more companies aren't innovating in the realm of social media is because of fear around the blame associated with failure.

Check out the full interview below, and let us know what you think!

Thanks to everyone who attended this morning's webinar,
"Content Marketing for Lead Gen: How to Get Started". Our presenters, Dan Biggs, Digital Strategist for Station X, and myself, were very excited about the topic, and we had some great questions.

Here are some highlights from the webinar:

• Content marketing is anything but new, but in the last few years or so, the practice of content marketing has gained alot of momentum with B2B and B2C marketers.
• The Internet has enabled marketers to take on the role of publisher and storyteller.
• Content marketing hinges on the principle of a value exchange.
• Relevancy, originality and calue are 3 key principles to keep in mind when producing any piece of content.
• Content mapping is essential to guiding and nurturing prospects through the sales funnel.
• Gating strategies can help to elevate the perception of value around your content, and certain types of content are ideal for gating.

Kickstarting Your Own Content Marketing Program

• Determine what content you already have, and what additional content you need to create.
• Build your content development team and calendar.
• Decide which channels are best suited to your purpose.
• A next generation CMS, analytics and social media tools are all essential for content marketers.

If you'd like to know more, check out the full webinar here.

Also, stay tuned for details on our next webinar on Thursday, March 15. Registration details will be available soon!

Marketers cannot ignore the rising
importance of local search. If you can work to strengthen your organic and local search rankings,
you'll be in a fantastic place relative to your competitors in 2012. To drive this point home, try writing these stats down and posting them in your workspace. 

• Local search is growing rapidly, expected to increase as much as 10% per year through to 2015.
• 80% of all searches on smartphones are for local services and products.

If you're unsure of where to begin, check out these 5 tips and tricks for making your way into the local search game:

1. Review Your SEO

Ensure that your website incorporates long-tail and location-specific keywords that unite your business type and location, with a special location page assigned to each location (if you have more than one).

2. Build Your Local Profiles...and Update Them

This includes Google Places, review sites, Yellow Pages, or any directory or search engines. By ensuring accurate, up-to-date and consistent information in all of your local profiles, you're setting yourself up for increased exposure in local search results. As time goes on, continue to update your profiles (even with information like running promotions, for example).

3. Don't Forget Your Customers

Have lots of satisfied customers? Get them to speak out for you by providing reviews online. User-generated content like reviews affirm your business credibility to search engines, and will help your rank in local search results.

4. Include Visuals

Visuals, including videos, are enticing to visitors and search engines alike, and they help to boost conversion rates. Try including a image of your store, if applicable, or members of your customer service team (if they're willing!).

If you're looking for additional tips on improving your local search rankings, check out Kevin Gibbons' post in Search Engine Watch.

We're joined today by the spirited Tammi Couto, Business Development Executive at Marqui. Tammi's fresh energy and experience in business development over the years have provided her with some incredible insights into how marketing and sales teams can find that sometimes-elusive symbiosis.

M: Tammi, in your experience, what are some of the factors that can cause mis-alignment or "siloed" approaches between marketing and sales teams?

It really comes down to different perceptions. Often enough, marketing teams feel frustrated about having to create a large number of leads and feel that they don't have enough visibility into how those leads are engaged by sales. I also know that some sales teams emphasize the need for lead quality over quantity, which really puts the onus onto marketing to ensure that leads are well qualified before they are handed off to sales.

Also, there really needs to be a common language spoken between marketing and sales. It's often lacking. For example, it's crucial to work towards the same definition of the "ideal" customer, and to have an agreed-upon idea of what a "sales-ready" lead looks like. It's also critical to determine who will be responsible for engaging with prospects at key points throughout the sales cycle, and to identify who will nurture live opportunities.

Don't forget about measurement, either! Sales and marketing teams need to come together to determine what to measure, including lead count, the ratio of opportunities to conversions and the % of sales-ready leads that convert.

M: Great tips, Tammi. Thanks for those. Now, let's switch gears a bit. What can marketers do to help make the sales process more efficient and productive?

Nurture. Nurture!

Lead nurturing is so important; leads that are nurtured typically have a higher ratio of closing, however you need to be prepared to sit back and wait for their readiness to buy, which could take 6-12 months.  When a lead is generated from a campaign, you have an opportunity as a sales person to influence the buying process and provoke them to make a decision sooner than later.  In short, I think it is fair to say that you need to have a good balance of prospecting and lead nurturing, and both marketing and sales teams can help each other out (i.e sales can have a hand in planning lead nurturing campaigns, and marketing can help with prospecting).

M: Thanks for the great tips, Tammi! In closing, what's the one key takeaway here for marketers?

More isn’t always better.  If marketers delivered fewer leads, but they were sales-ready, it would make a day in the life of a sales rep little easier (not to mention the close ratio a lot higher). That is not to say that sales teams are looking for an easy way out [laughs]. It would just allow us to use our time more effectively throughout the day.

In true Valentine's Day spirit, we wanted to share with you today an example of a multichannel marketing campaign that we absolutely love.

Luxury lifestyle brand Michael Kors has recently launched a conversation-starting campaign via social media, email, mobile and e-commerce. The campaign encourages consumers to share what they are "falling in love with" this Valentine's Day, from relationships to vacation destinations to accessories and more. Bridging the gap between social and mobile, Kors began with the #FallingInLoveWith hashtag on Twitter, and followed with the "10 Things Worth Falling In Love With" emails, which feature products and ideas that are also found on Michael Kors' Instagram account and Pinterest board. Facebook posts and blog posts are also thrown in the mix, with in-store displays helping to tie all the channels together.





These kinds of integrated, holistic campaigns really are the wave of the future, and not just for lifestyle or fashion brands either. Even London-based chocolatier Charbonnel et Walker, in partnership with crystal brand Swarovski, has launched a Valentine's Day campaign that spans in-store, ecommerce, social media and email touch points. More than one-dimensional or static, campaigns like these harness the positive and personal experiences associated with holidays like Valentine's Day to drive consumers to purchase.

The great part? Marqui can help bring these types of multichannel campaigns to life, with one platform to manage and measure the success of your campaign. If you want to know more about how Marqui can help with your multichannel marketing, chat with one of our multichannel campaign specialists today.

Have you come across any other inspiring multichannel campaigns for Valentine's Day? Share them here!

Content marketing continues to be a top priority for businesses in 2012. As Content Marketing Institute's research has found, marketers delivered more B2B content on social sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter than ever before.

The following infographic from BlueGlass Interactive captures some of the current trends in content marketing, along with some best-in-class examples of content sharing in action, from brands including Coca-Cola, Mint.com and American Express.

Content marketing can seem daunting, but as this infographic indicates, you are likely already engaged in content marketing practices, whether you realize it or not. The question is: how can your get the most ROI from your content? If you want to learn more about how you can fully leverage content marketing best practices to boost your business growth, stay tuned for details on our next webinar, on Thursday February 23 at 10:30AM PST. Registration details coming soon!

Many marketers (if not all!) have, at some point in their careers, come across basic principles of behavioural psychology. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is one prominent example that marketing professionals have historically drawn upon to understand some of the psychological motivations for action.

Sally Hogshead, international keynote speaker and author of the book Fascinate, has become a force to be reckoned with in attempts to understand human action.  Receiving acclaim for her recent work, which brings together market research, behavioural and social studies, along with neurobiology and evolutionary anthropology, Hogshead has identified patterns for understanding how to captivate today's attention-deprived consumer. Hogshead argues that fascination is the "most powerful way to influence decision-making", even more persuasive than marketing or advertising. 

In Hogshead's definition of "Fascination", every individual and brand are motivated by different combinations of 7 triggers. She argues that fascination plays a key role in every decision you make, every brand you align yourself with, every friend you have and every purchase you make. She concludes that rationality and logic are largely non-existent in the process of a consumer becoming "fascinated". What does this mean? Take heed, product marketers: that oh-so-practical feature list may not always be the best way to capture your target audience.

Originally a publication geared toward marketing professionals, Hogshead's concept of Fascination has (fittingly!) captivated diverse audiences around the world, who have flocked to the website to take the "F Score" test, which measures how the world perceives your brand, or your personality.  Companies have used this test to examine their brand's personal strengths, using these to craft messaging that is much more fascinating to their target market.

Now, without further ado, here are the 7 triggers:

1.    Passion

• Need for emotion, communication, and human connection
• A "right-brain" approach
• Creative and expressive

2.    Mystique

• Need to pique curiosity
• Desire to maintain privacy and independence

3.    Prestige

• Need for respect
• Aspirational
• Can be intimidating to some

4.    Power

• Confidence
• Need to be self-motivating and authoritative

5.    Rebellion

• Need to examine different options, be innovative and broaden one's horizon
• Refusal to accept the mainstream
• Driven to challenge the "normal" way of doing things

6.    Alarm

• Motivated by fear of consequences
• Action-oriented as opposed to emotionally resonant
• This trigger relies on scarcity and urgency to get immediate results

7.    Trust

• Focus on clear patterns and expectations
• Stability, dependability and boundaries are essential

How can marketers use these triggers? Forget the shotgun effect; you can't effectively target all 7 triggers at once, although your brand can choose to pull different triggers for different campaigns.

If you want to strike an emotional chord with your potential customers, for example, using the "passion" trigger would be best. Or, if you want to position your company as an authority or leader, you would employ the "power" trigger. If your objective is bring in as many sales as possible in a short period of time, you might consider using the "alarm" trigger (or likewise, the "trust" trigger to foster long-term loyalty).

One particular trigger that Hogshead examines in more detail is "prestige". Individuals respect and attribute value to things they respect, and although this may not necessarily translate into a direct sale, there is considerable brand equity to be earned from this trigger. How can this trigger be applied to the arena of small business, for example? It could be very useful to examine your company's offering and isolate the single most unique/impressive feature of your product or service. As Hogshead instructs, "Find one way to own an area in which you have created the ultimate". This can then function as your brand "badge".

As many already realize, prestige is about raising people's perception of your brand or business by over-delivering in one particular area. A perfect example of the "prestige" trigger is found in the marketing of the luxury vodka brand, Grey Goose. Hogshead reveals that Grey Goose is founded not on a recipe, but on a high price point, a perception of value.

Check out the full interview between Behind the Brand's Bryan Elliott and Sally Hogshead below. If you're intrigued, be sure to also check out the second part of the interview, where Hogshead delves into more detail around the application of fascination.



One key takeaway? As Hogshead succintly points out, the measure of fascination doesn't lie in what a brand says about itself but in what people say about it.  This could very well be that wake-up call for marketers operating in a vacuum, neglecting to take into account that all-too-essential part of the marketing/branding equation: consumer perception.

What do you make of Hogshead's concept of fascination? You've likely encountered variations of this concept already, but how can marketers integrate these 7 triggers more deeply into their brand presence?

Before delving into forecasts on the future of email marketing, it will be useful to have a look at where email "stands" amongst other digital channels. In recent years, email marketing has sometimes been overshadowed by mobile and social media's rising popularity, often categorized as an "old school" (aka boring!) marketing channel. Email marketing is anything but tired or dated - for example, a Pew survey in 2011 found that email has been consistently ranked as one of most popular online activities, alongside search:



Again, anything but tired, as new platforms and devices have significantly changed the web landscape over time, the power of email as a key marketing channel has remained constant. An email address, sometimes seen as the social security number of the digital age, is a highly sought-after commodity by advertisers and marketers. Check out this infographic from SmarterTools, which captures how email accounts and sends far surpass other posts and tweets from social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+:



Of course, email marketing should never be a standalone effort. What this infographic really suggests is how the intersection of web, email, mobile and social provides a very exciting opportunity for marketers in 2012. Research has shown, for example, that incorporating emails that have social sharing links have a significantly higher clickthrough rate (115% higher than emails that didn't incorporate social sharing), as uncovered in a study by GetResponse Email. Yet, the study found that only about 20% of email marketers actually include social sharing links in their emails, which could be for a variety of reasons, but if your target customers are active on social media, email can be a fantastic way to engage with your brand and encourage sharing.

If the future of email marketing is multi-channel (web-mobile-social-email), what exactly does it mean for marketers? Some experts in the email marketing community have provided their own advice on what to watch out for in 2012. Here's a snapshot of some of those insights:

•  "The efforts to continue to integrate email with social signals (and search as well) need to escalate. Online marketing has become so “un-siloed” in the recent past and it is important to make sure that there are KPI’s in place to at least monitor the impact or influence e-mail efforts has on social / search and vice versa." - Frank Reed, Managing Editor at Marketing Pilgrim.

•  "Expect further focus by webmail and ISPs to sift and sort inboxes and spam folders based on user engagement metrics. [...] The tools and compute power to do this in realtime are out there and growing in sophistication every day." - Tom Kulzer, CEO of AWeber.

•  "I see integration as the issue [...], now we can segment, but the smart marketers will figure out the interplay between email and social. They have to…these things are not siloed anymore." - Will Reynolds, Founder of SEER Interactive.

•  "The biggest challenge for all marketers, email marketers included, will be truly developing valuable, relevant and compelling content so those emails keep getting opened and, ultimately, driving sales."  - Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute.

Value, relevancy, context and social seem to be four priorities woven through many of the predictions on the future of email marketing. What are your top email marketing priorities for 2012?