When you look at job descriptions for marketing managers these days you wonder if any one person can really fulfill the role.  Marketing has expanded greatly in the past dozen years as the Internet and digital marketing has exploded.  Today when I look at position descriptions for marketing managers and directors I see a huge list of skills required including:

• Planning and coordinating marketing programs and campaigns
• Identifying new marketing opportunities
• Manage and develop CRM programs
• Manage and track social media communications
• Development of traditional sales collateral
• Trade show and special events management
• Development and management of online advertising, pay-per-click campaigns and Google Adwords programs
• Create, manage and administration of website content with knowledge of HTML, CSS and other web technologies
• SEO/SEM administration and tracking website traffic
• Develop and promote demonstration videos, kits and point of sale programs
• Write, edit and distribute press releases
• Manage relationships with vendors
• Develop and manage marketing budgets
• Design and implement email marketing campaigns and programs
• Various duties to support sales teams

What really amazes me is when people looking for managers to fill the roles they state 3 years of experience. Really 3 years to learn all of this?  In my first three years of marketing I learned about developing corporate collateral, managing tradeshows, direct mail promotions and tracking PR efforts.  We had a 3-5 person marketing team for a company of approximately 110 people with 3 distinct product lines.  Other members of the team were responsible for content development, budgeting, high level planning and CRM.

Realistically any company looking to have a single person do all these skills and efforts well is not being realistic.  I’ve discovered that small businesses trying to be all things to all people in marketing tend to skim the surface of these efforts because the one person doing all the work is trying to keep their head above water.  True the marketing manager should be involved in all these efforts but some of the work needs to be outsourced or additional resources should be brought in to help with specific programs like SEO/SEM and online ad management.  Heck Google Adwords alone is a full time job!

Even if you do find someone that is semi-proficient in all these areas how well do you think they can perform them in a 40 hour work week?

Last year I wrote a blog post about why I stopped subscribing to the daily newspaper. Only a year of time has passed but it seems like 5 years have passed since then. In my post I asked “now what?” Well in that time I’ve found that the answer to that is Twitter.

I frequent Twitter more often than Facebook or LinkedIn on a daily basis for a few reasons. The first being that it’s easy to scan Twitter streams, much like newspaper headlines. I’m a big scanner and I tend to search for keywords that spark my interest. Of course the downside to this is I sometimes miss information but so does everyone else. But for the most part I click through to articles of interest to read and sometimes share.

Second is the ability to group content using Twitter lists. I group my lists much like the sections of the paper: local news, sports, entertainment and national news feeds. I also have a group of approximately 200 local people that I follow on a regular basis. Once you get over 150+ friends it’s too much data to track on the main feed. Segmentation is key. And I'm a local news junkie in that I'm more interested in what's going on in my area and the local people making news. Twitter allows me to keep abreast of what's happening in my community.

Third is that Twitter is real time. Gone are the days of getting yesterday’s news in today’s paper and catching a 20 minute recap of national nightly news. I do miss CNN Headline News when they did the 20 minute recap all day long. Now CNN is like a bad cable reality show of people trying to make news interesting. Just the facts please, no need to entertain me I want to be informed. If the story is big it will be retweeted to death and that gets my attention even if I’m offline for a period of time.

Now I would only be telling part of the story if I did not state that some of the Twitter feeds that I follow are newspapers and news organizations. As these media companies have started using social media sites, it allows us as consumers to continue our relationship with the media outlets that we've known and trusted for so many years.

I also want to point out like I did in my post last year that part of me feels empty with newspapers dying. For one I know that many journalists and newspaper staff do it for their love of reporting, writing and publishing. Newspapers were never the wealthy choice of communication professionals. So to those that have seen their industry shrink yet still work hard to be their reader’s advocates and report the facts you have my greatest respect.

Do you still subscribe to the daily newspaper? If not how do you get your news and information?

In my last post I talked about what makes a good storyteller and I thought this post would be a good follow up to talk about how to use the web and social networks to spread your story.  Now we all love a good story and want to share with our friends.  But if you are managing an online brand what's the best method to spread your story via the web and social networks.

We all hear the experts say start with a blog or web site.  While this is the starting point it's important to look at channels that can help spread your story.  Feedburner and RSS feed tools are one great way to allow users to subscribe to your content and stay abreast.  But are there other avenues to help spread the word?

The answer is yes and to explain this point I'm going to use a recent example I came across.  A few weeks ago my friend Greg Ng @gregoryng asked for volunteers for a Freezerburns episode on frozen hamburgers.  I was excited to be chosen as one of the taste testers for his "frodown" where he had three fathers taste frozen hamburgers and choose their favorites.  The episode was a big success for Greg and even made the front page of YouTube on Father's Day.

Wow exciting right? But what really caught my interest was when I went to Freezerburns site and check out the subscribe page. I expected Greg to have the leading subscription options like YouTube and iTunes. But what I found was that he had that and much more. A total of 13 subscriber options are available for his content. The usual suspects like Feedburner and email options as well as Twitter and Facebook are present. But what impressed me were some of the lesser known, at least to me, video and podcasting options Greg managed his content through. Take a look below at his subscriber options listed on his page.

Now I know there are tools that allow content creators to autopost to multiple sites.  But at the same time that's only half the work.  Setting up accounts, moderating comments and keeping up with all the necessary options, updates and other tasks on these networks is time consuming.  What this impressive list tells me is that Greg is dedicated to his audience and wants to deliver content to audiences on sites that are relevant to his content type, video.  I know that I've had to sometimes not use some social networks or distribution sites for some of the online brands that I manage because I'm not sure if it's the right audience or if anyone is really going to the site.  However in making that decision I may have missed some readers and opportunity to connect with potential customers and audience.

What channels are you evaluating when distributing your content on the web?

Storytelling is one of our most important and primary means of communicating with others. The name conjures up images of reading bedtime stories to our children. Yet the art of storytelling is vital to sales and marketing communications. The great sales guys that can sell ice to Eskimos are also great storytellers that can engage their listeners and bring them to decision points.  And I bet they can also keep kids enthralled when reading a bedtime story as well!

As we build our personal brands via social networks we eventually find ourselves telling our own personal or corporate story many times. I find that each time I talk with a new vendor I have to tell the story of who my company is, how we got here and our current needs. Ideally I need to communicate enough of the story so that the vendor can then tell me how they can help.  Storytelling also plays a huge role in when we are selling ourselves and personal brand when interviewing, seeking partners and just about every business relationship at some point.

But how do you become a great storyteller in the business world? No doubt part of it relies on talent and if you are lacking you need to work on some critical areas to succeed.

Practice, practice, practice! As many times as we hear this and as many times as we review and read our story you can never have enough practice. But the key takeaway is finding the parts of the story where you may be having problems. Getting your story down is the first part. Also time your story. You need to give a background and overview in less than a minute or two.

Sequencing is also a key to storytelling. Nothing is worse than saying, "wait, I forgot about.." Backpeddling during a story makes the listener have to break their concentration and can train-wreck the message. If there is a significant event in your history find a good way to mention it without going too deep.  You can even say, "that's another story," so that your listener can ask to hear it later if it's pertinent.

Which leads me to another important point, trim the fat. If certain parts of the story are not relevant take them
out. Nobody wants to listen to a rambling tale that may have a good ending but takes too long to get there.  Of course this sounds easy but when we're having to tell our corporate or personal story we can stray off kilter. If you're like me sometimes your brain gets ahead of you and can lose focus. You can get nervous trying to keep listeners attention or their lack of attention can be distracting. Staying focused can keep you on top of your story.

And most important is to be relevant.  Is you listener interested in your story about you or your company.  Ask questions ahead of time if possible or seek input from others.

In my next post I will write about how a great storyteller can use social networks and content to reach their audience.

What are your storytelling tips?  Who is the best storyteller you've seen in the business world?

BP unveiled a new multi million dollar PR campaign this past week. I first saw the commercial while watching the morning news and watched with great interest. First as a US Citizen I wanted to know what this European based company was doing to clean up the worst natural disaster in our country’s history. I have family that lives in that part of the country and I felt a bit snarky when BP’s CEO Tony Hayward said they would take care of all the problems and he’s sorry that it happened.

Even President Obama said that BP should be spending more on the clean up than on a PR campaign. However would his opinion be different if he was a PR person? I mean we keep telling everyone how this new social media channel allows us to have a conversation and that companies need to communicate to us and not just sell us goods and services? Recent case studies I’ve read about companies doing it wrong continually point out that some companies react and stop the communication in fear of inflaming a difficult situation or crisis communication.

No doubt that the effects of this spill will continue to affect the Gulf region for years to come. It’s a terrible tragedy that in a perfect world would never have happened. But it did and BP as well as those affected have to deal with the aftermath. BP could not continue to run its typical brand advertising in the face of what happened. That would have been a big slap in the face to Gulf coast residents and others that care about our environment and livelihood of our fellow world citizens.

In writing this article I visited the BP YouTube channel to find the link to the ad. While there I noticed that BP has many videos produced in the past several weeks addressing the Gulf spill across a variety of topics. The videos range from updates on the progress of trying to cap the pipe, technical videos on the processes and how they work to environmental awareness and animal release information.

From a PR and social media perspective BP seems to be doing the right thing by engaging and communicating to the public. The ad shows some sincerity in apologizing for the disaster and promises to clean it up at no taxpayer expense. Of course we know that’s not true as the multitude of federal, state and local government workers that are dealing with the problems that have arisen due to the spill. However it appears that BP is following the conventional wisdom of owning up to its responsibilities and taking ownership and communicating that to its audiences. Of course time will tell how well they actually do just that.

What do you think of the recent BP PR campaign? Is it the right step at the right time or just damage control?

Yesterday was supposed to be the day that Facebook users would delete their accounts in protest of the company’s privacy policy changes over the past several weeks. However according to a post Web Pro News only 34,424 users took the plunge and did just that. I can see a few reasons why this is true.

First most users don’t understand the privacy issue and many don’t care. Social networks are all about connecting and many users want to do just that. By having more open access to their profile they can connect with more users that share common interest and activities. True many savvy users have more restricted access but they are the minority of the Facebook population. Facebook users that are using the social network for business are also eager to be more accessible to generate leads and new business opportunities.

Over the past year Facebook has changed, modified and tweaked its privacy settings. It seems like every time you access the settings it has changed. The frequency that I visit these settings is maybe once a month. My feeling is that most users never revisit their settings once they set up their account and forget about it. Of course this can change if they get too many strange friend requests or suspicious emails from the account.

The other reason many users won’t quit Facebook is the platform itself. Let’s face it how many software platforms have you use that have the breadth and depth of Facebook and are free? Without being a web designer you can have photo albums, video posts, a blog, and links to all your favorite music, movies, restaurants or any other collective “like” page. You can even organize your high school reunion, local sports team fan club or whatever type of group you want to manage with out having to code.

Add onto that the ability to connect with such a large population of friends and other people, Facebook is hard to match. True the new Diaspora Project aims to create the next great social network, but how long with it take them to get 1 million users, much less 400 million users. Are you going to ask your friends to migrate as well? What about your Mom? Facebook has become an easy way for us to share with family members and has replaced the phone calls and extra photos we used to mail and email each other.

I have to admit that I get tired of some of the Facebook minutia of people’s lives. Reconnecting with past friends and co-workers many times has the lifespan of a few days. However for local connections it’s a great way to keep abreast of what’s happening or experience events or other occasions that I may not be able to attend. Even though I’ve said to myself and a few others I want to get rid of my Facebook account just because I don’t want to keep up with it I won’t.

What’s your take on quitting Facebook? Are you upset about the privacy settings or any other facet enough to delete your account? If you did get rid of your account what’s the fallout if any?

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to speak to the Raleigh SEO Meetup organized by Ashley Berman-Hale and Phil Buckley @1918.  The topic was “Branding on A Budget,” and since I’ve worked for many small companies I’ve had my share of challenging marketing goals on little or no budget.  In preparing my speakers notes I came across some marketing strategies to help get the most from your budget.

• Find a major media event that may be happening at the same time as your marketing campaign.  Last year I had to promote a trade show appearance for Site Dynamics.  I had a minimal budget of $300 for promotional items.  One of the big stories in the mainstream media at that time was the release of Beatles Rockband.  I decided to tie into the buzz of the video game release by giving away guitar picks and a copy of Beatles Rockband to booth visitors.  For more details on the campaign read the blog post here.
• Make the most of major events.  Another client, SignalShare was preparing to work the Pepsi Fan Jam at this year’s SuperBowl.  Since the company was a start up and had a new story to tell I reached out to people I knew at WRAL Channel 5 and pitched them on the story idea.  It worked and WRAL did a story on SignalShare that aired the week before the SuperBowl.

• Use Social Media where and when appropriate.  I manage the newsletter for the Triangle Chapter of the American Marketing Association @TriangleAMA and delved into social media as a method to increase exposure for the newsletter articles.  I found that by creating a blog and Twitter presence I was able to reach Triangle area marketing professionals and increase awareness of our programs and events.  Website traffic increased and so did meeting attendance.  Over the past two years we have incorporated social media into our strategic outreach and communication strategy.  Click here to read my case study on Triangle AMA social media.
• Find partners with more money or brand awareness than you.  Many times we have corporate partners, resellers, etc. that have a strong brand presence.  See if they are willing to do a co-op promotion or campaign to increase their customer base as well as yours.  If you partner with a major brand, see what their co-op program offers.  Many large companies have entire departments for managing co-op funds and struggle to get partners to use them.

Overall these strategies are great for when you are starting to build your brand.  Ideally as your company grows so should your marketing budget and resources.  I’ve seen too many companies not do this and then when the economy goes south they panic.  Branding on a budget mostly requires creativity and savvy.  Building your brand requires a commitment to marketing and an understanding of its importance to your organization.  As with any organizational activity use your budget wisely, evaluate vendors and perform your due diligence.

I want to thank Ashley, Phil and everyone that attended and asked great questions.

What are your tips for getting the most from your marketing budget?

This month is abuzz with mobile. Both the Triangle AMA and TIMA have speakers on mobile marketing and ads. Mobile Internet traffic is increasing with the proliferation of smartphones and Wi-Fi devices. This post is actually being drafted on an iPhone so I can gauge what a mobile blog post is all about.

For one it's really intense in terms of keying this in using a keyboard that only uses my thumbs and no mouse. This has made me focus accurately and correctly writing the first draft. Reminds me of the typing class I took in high school. The final result is going to be produced in less than 45 minutes. No links, photos or anything else. Just good old fashioned words strung together to try and keep the reader engaged, informed and educated.

True I could write this on my laptop using Word and its tools like spellchecker. But what is mobile blogging if I don't actually use the Wordpress iPhone plugin to actually draft a post? Editing is a bit tricky but I am curious how viable a Smartphone is as a field reporting unit.

No doubt an iPad would be better suited for the task. And in time I do foresee content being drafted on tablet devices in increasing numbers. I've already envisioned my grade school children will be using this type of device in middle school within the next three to five years.

But going full on mobile is rapidly happening all around us. Home phone accounts are giving way to a family of four wireless plan. Our phones have address, contact information, calendar and notes stored in them for easy access. Geo location features and apps allow us to find each other and share locations. Smartphones have become the mobile convergence devices that deliver true computer telephony integration.

But I gave to say that mobile blogging on such a device is difficult. It's taken me longer to write this post. And many times my large thumbs hit the Shift or Return key by accident! It has taken me longer to write this post and I have had to revisit the copy more than usual but that's not a bad thing!

What's your experience blogging on a mobile device? What challenges have you experienced? Or does it not compute for you?

I had a great meeting with a training company today. We discussed many topics but one of the points that really hit home with me was when they stated that companies want to measure training ROI during economic downturns. Many times training gets cut much like marketing and the investment in the future opportunity is lost.

I’ve worked for many companies in my career and only one sticks out in my mind that got training right. I was the Marketing Director for Huffman Corporation a small manufacturer in Clover, SC, about 30 miles southwest of Charlotte. Huffman made multi-axis, superabrasive machinery that made parts for aircraft engines, turbines and other heavy metal parts. Huffman had a training policy that allotted and required each employee to take 40 hours of training each year.

At prior employers training was only mandated if there was a new product or service purchased and no one knew how to use it. Usually it required so much approval to get funding for training that either the dates passed or you got tired of explaining 17 ways to Sunday why it’s important for you to take the training. So when I heard that my company would give me a week of training I was ecstatic and a bit skeptical. However there were no tricks to this gift. The training had to be relevant to your work.

So I took two classes that year, one in HTML and the other in Microsoft Access. Both classes gave me the basic understanding of the technology and applications that I needed to build new tools (remember this was 1998 and web sites and CRM were new). Within a few months I had built a ROI database to measure all of my marketing leads and redesigned some pages for the company site. The training was not expensive, probably around $600 total.

My excitement came when I showed the company president my lead tracking reports generated from my database. He asked where I generated it from and I replied that I created the database using Access after my training. His eyes lit up because this was exactly why he created the training policy in the first place. The ROI was right in front of him.

Now many people view training as time to get out of the office. I’ve even heard it mentioned as vacation by some. These are the people who will end up asking you how to use the new technology once it’s implemented since they did not embrace the educational opportunity. These are the people that are checking email and surfing the web during training.

Other times I’ve had company management ask me to take training and then come back and train the rest of the team. This usually fails due to several reasons. I’m not a corporate trainer and I tend to get frustrated when people don’t learn as fast as me. With software I tend to quickly grasp the concepts and dive into the tools features and functionality. Those who are slower will drown in my wake!

Another reason it failed is because I usually don’t have time to customize and prepare training materials. Having examples to demonstrate how the tool works is vital to showing users standard approaches and best practices. Either way going cheap on training will cost you in productivity, quality and important customer engagements.

Therefore you’re ROI in training for important tools and technology is the same as your ROI in marketing. It’s an investment in your people; infrastructure and processes that managed correctly will pay dividends for years to come. If you expect a quick return on training you are only looking at half of the picture. Yes your staff comes back from training ready to use the new tool but initially there is some time investment in starting or changing the process.

How do you measure ROI for your training? Do you have to approve staff training or does it go through HR? Does your company have a training policy?

This is a post that I’ve wanted to write for quite some time. After stints at agencies and on the corporate side I've learned how to manage PR agencies to get the best service and results. When talking with new business owners I often discover that this can be a real challenge for them if they are not a communication professional or have a PR background. In answering their questions and providing guidance on how to manage an agency I'm often coming back to several key points.

First you need to find the right agency. It sounds simple but I cannot stress this more. PR agencies know the people you need to connect with and manage those relationships. Building new ones from scratch takes time. If your campaign is short and immediate then you need to get the right team on board quick. Be sure you meet every team member that is handling your brand.

Do they have a clear and measurable plan? All successful projects are documented and define expectations during the planning and launch phase. Ask about the roles and responsibilities of the agency’s team and how it’s communicated. Ensure your goals and achievements can be accurately measured. It has to be more than high level, broad statements. There needs to be language that dictates a plan of action that can be judged on results and deliverables.

Generating awareness and building trust are what’s needed to have great PR. But what are the deliverables of these efforts? The value of connections, their influence can be easily researched today and can be quantified in terms of size, scope and level of influence. How do they demonstrate ROI for the day to day conversations that lead to future placements and impressions? Is it a contact sheet, a summary or both? How often will you review the data, daily, weekly or monthly? Everything is measurable, it is the responsibility of the agency team to qualify, quantify and measure their actions and corresponding worth.

What is the change management process and how does it affect the billing? All good plans may need modifications and this is most true for long term, multi-stage projects. If it sounds too complex, break it down into a few smaller phases like a launch or promotional event. A clear understanding how to manage your budget while at the same time dealing with change is crucial. Ask the agency how they factor revision time into design? At what stages are you involved so that your feedback is incorporated into any changes?

How can they make the best use of your time? Carve out a specific time each week to communicate with the team as a whole. Get as much feedback on what your customers and audience is saying from those that are doing the work. This also allows them to ask you questions they may be facing in the direction of the product. Also this builds teamwork and brand enthusiasm among the team.

Managing an outsource service requires your time and diligence if you want to get real value. It can be a bit of a gamble if you are starting from scratch. You can burn through several vendors in a short period of time or you can find a great one after doing a thorough search and defining what you want. And remember PR is not advertising. If you want your message to appear the way you want it each and every time, buy an ad. If you want to build an audience of key influencers and provide insight into your brand, hire a PR firm.

I always tell prospective agencies that I am both their best friend and their worst nightmare. I'm their friend because I can help get them in the right direction quickly with getting started and knowledge transfer. I'm the nightmare when they slip up and try to shake the blame instead of letting me know how they plan to address the issue or problem. Rarely am I the latter. I am always interested in how I can help the agency team help me! That's what I'm paying for!

What tips do you have when looking for a PR agency? How do you manage their time and efforts?