Setting a brand on fire

What makes viral and buzz marketing catch on is usually it’s association with something timely, extremely unique or otherwise memorable. In some way it touches people personally and specifically. It’s the way a brand solves a customer’s problem. For example it may be that a product was delivered faster than expected, the service rep went way above and beyond or the customer recognized greater value after the sale. C2C is simply providing your customers with a consistent brand image, value and experience that they appreciate and it is unique enough to talk about.

No Special Equipment Needed

There are no new strategies or tactics to talk about here, just basic marketing and business acumen. Good marketing and advertising brings value to the customer by providing information, entertainment or validation. 

Marketing in any form is still all about helping people solve their needs. Often “needs” they didn’t even know they had. Whether they “need” that hot new perfume, a cereal their kids will like, or a new computer system with brand new features, the customer has a need. Marketing should be all about creating a consistent brand message across marketing channels that customers associate with a solution to that need. That kind of marketing creates a more personal sort of recall and gets talked about in the form of social exchanges and recommendations both online and off. That’s C2C.

B2B is still about C

The immense popularity of social media, specifically B2B social media confirms what I’m saying here — people will talk about brands that interest them, inform them or entertain them. Selling to a business is still selling to people — the main difference is in the needs that they have and what makes them personal.

So while your looking at strategies and creative for B2B and B2C marketing, don’t forget about the C2C effect.

What do you think?

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Many online marketers have lost sight of marketing basics. With technology moving so fast, many of us have gotten caught up in the latest and greatest digital gizmo or gadget. Having the ability to track and target people more precisely or better understand their buying habits is certainly an asset to the marketing process, but it still can’t replace or even become the strategy.

I was with a client yesterday discussing the cause of their slumping conversion rates on their B2B web site. Despite having a excellent product, a terrific sales team and outstanding customer service, they didn’t understand why their inbound marketing efforts were sagging.

One look at their ads, web site, and landing pages told the entire story. Since they are a technology company, I can understand how these guys view their business through an analytical prism. The problem is that their customers don’t. Their marketing sounds like it’s talking to their management team, not to their customers. And while they’re doing a great job measuring the results, the adjustments they’re making to the creative make the numbers may move slightly, but don’t get to the root of the problem, and that shows in the bottom line. These guys have lost the forest and are stuck in the technical trees.

The focus now seems to be on who can be the first to leverage the newest mobile platform or how fast you can utilize a certain new software. Digital marketing, whether your using social media marketing, pre-roll ads or just PPC is still about the end user and what is important to them. The metrics will come. Marketing must still be about the value of the message and the content first — and less about how it’s delivered.

Ask yourself this: in a year from now when the technology you are using today becomes common place, will your message your sending still resonate? Channel selection is and must always be a result of where your customers are, not just what happens to be the hottest technology today.

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Some large manufacturers have already made adjustments to reflect this revelation. According to the Economist magazine, the snack manufacturer Frito-Lay, which is owned by Pepsi Cola, has launched a campaign called “Only In A Women’s World,” to convince women their products are not just for men, but women too. The same article mentions that Office Max, the second largest office supply company in the United States, redesigned its notebooks and file-holders to appeal more to women. Office Max is also running advertisements to encourage women to make their office cubicles more colorful. The article further noted that McDonalds became a fashion week sponsor for the first time this past February. The event was used by McDonalds to promote a new line of hot drinks targeted towards women.

The economic climate also had the unexpected effect of further increasing the influence of women as the driving force in purchasing. Since unemployment has hit men disproportionately to women, it has decreased men’s buying power as a group. When you consider a women’s increasing earning power along with her previously established role as the purchase decision-maker in the home, the importance of marketing specifically to women cannot be denied for almost any product.

It is quite ironic that it took an economic meltdown for marketing to catch up. “It is hardly news that (women) control the vast majority of consumer spending. They buy 90% of food, 55% of consumer electronics, and most of the new cars,” says Bain & Company’s head of global consuming Eric Almquist.

The sooner marketers shift their efforts to the correct target and look at their product through a women’s eyes, the better chance they have to hit a bull’s-eye.

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