BMA B2B Marketing Blog

Monsanto executive to present award-winning, integrated marketing campaign on June 7th

Erin Moloney - Tuesday, May 29, 2012

We hear a lot about content marketing and story-telling as an effective element in B-to-B marketing communications, but have you ever really heard about and been inspired by one brand's program to tell a compelling story, in an integrated fashion across channels, that also led to quantifiable results?

 

The Business Marketing Association named Monsanto Corporate Marketer of the Year for 2011 and also awarded the company five B2 awards at its national award ceremony. Three of the awards were for Monsanto's "America's Farmers" campaign. And this multi-million dollar ad campaign truly does tell a story.


This is from Monsanto's YouTube site for the campaign:


The America's Farmers campaign features real farm families doing what they do every day -- growing not only our food, but also our economy and our quality of life here in America. We're all connected to agriculture and it's time we, as a nation, learn more about the industry that provides for us every day.
Monsanto is proud to work alongside farmers as they work to provide food, clothing and energy for our growing world. And as a U.S.-based agriculture company, we believe it is our responsibility to help tell the real stories of America's farmers.


Monstanto tells consumers just how truly important America's farmers are to our economy and how they provide for us every day. The agricultural industry in our country exports $100 billion in crops and employs over 24 million Americans. 


This campaign included TV, radio, newspaper ads, a micro-site, event marketing and social media. It's main objective is to correct misinformation about the farming industry and tell true stories about American farming families. 


Join us on June 7th when Mark Halton, Monsanto’s VP of Global Corporate Marketing & Communications, his team members will speak at our luncheon in Clayton, MO. You'll learn about the background of the campaign, how it has morphed into other Monsanto brand campaigns, how they’re measuring results, and how their employees and agencies get psyched about awards.  Register Here




The B2 Awards recognize business-to-business marketing programs and demonstrate the ability to transform new, creative ideas into strategic initiatives. 



BMA Saint Louis Needs a Few Good Interns

Erin Moloney - Wednesday, May 09, 2012

We are looking for summer interns to begin as soon as possible. This is a paid internship, great for anyone currently enrolled in school to gain experience in communications, promotions, advertising, etc... and to network with Saint Louis' marketing leaders. 

If you are interested or know someone who may be interested, E-mail [email protected] 


Marketing and Advertising Awards Program Producer


Awards Program - Judging Responsibilities:
      • •  Create and execute integrated marketing plan across all channels: telephone, mail, e-mail, web, social, face-to-face, etc. 
      • •  Coordinate team efforts in promoting the upcoming TAM awards nominations, judging and awards ceremony
•  Develop and implement new categories and judging criteria
•  Interact with nominees, support throughout entry process.
•  Manage digital online awards judging process
•  Coordinate, staff and manage judging process
•  Develop and push out winner & loss notifications, organize materials for winning entries
•  Manage records of incoming funds, awards program budget 

Awards Event - Event Planning and Event Day Responsibilities:
•  Create and execute integrated marketing plan across all channels. Telephone, mail, e-mail, Internet, social, face-to-face, etc. 
•  Coordinate event details with sponsors and partners assisting in promotion.
•  Develop party theme and create activities for event night.
•  Develop and coordinate entertainment
•  Coordinate logistics on event venue, hospitality, room design, etc
•  Maintain contact with awards entry participants and winners
•  Write script and develop presentation for events ceremony
•  Set up exhibition, manage party operations, presentation, stage activities, tear down exhibition


The TAM Awards is one of the biggest advertising and marketing party in Saint Louis each year. There are two interns needed to fill this role. This role will work closely with leadership oversight and mentoring from BMA board member and marketing leader, Russell Kroeker. 

The internship begins on May 15 and ends Oct 1 at a set number of part-time hours per week. 
Most of the work is leisurely. There are a couple of weeks of increased hours after July 4th and again in the weeks leading up to the awards party in the middle of September, specifically in August.

If you are interested or know someone who may be interested, E-mail [email protected]  

See photos from the TAM Awards Party last year. This is a fun event, and a fun internship opportunity. 

First St. Louis B2B Marketing Summit Announced

Erin Moloney - Thursday, May 03, 2012

We are proud to announce, in conjunction with the BMA National Organization, that the first B2B Marketing Summit in St. Louis, MO will be held this October 4th. Called "Go and Grow." We're bringing national and local B2B marketing leaders together in St. Louis for a half day summit followed by cocktails and networking. Attend sessions presented by CMOs leading major brands. These discussions will inform and inspire you in the following areas:

  1. Marketing Integration
  2. Mobilizing B2B Marketing
  3. B2B Marketing Best Practices
  4. Turning Marketing Complexity into New Opportunities

Save the Date
Mark your calendar for October 4th, and Sign up now to Receive Email Updates as the date gets closer. 

This is bound to be a valuable and exciting event and networking opportunity. 

Speakers and Presenters
If you are interested in presenting at the conference, please Contact Us.




The Year's Best TV Ads: Attend a Special Filming at the Sheldon on May 2nd

Erin Moloney - Monday, April 23, 2012

Have you ever watched an hour or so of TV bloopers, animated shorts or funny and clever advertisements? Some of the most fun I've had watching a film has been when I've had a chance to view the most creative and compelling work by advertising creatives. Luckily, on May 2nd, Saint Louis will have a chance to see the best television ads from last year, as awarded at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. 


This annual festival is held annually in France for the top advertisers and agencies around the world, and the most memorable one yet wrapped up last summer. This year, only one organization is bringing you an hour and a half of the winning TV ads. Everything from Google Chrome's clever science experiment ads to Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like", and all the hilarious ones you've never seen in between. BMA is hosting "Cannes Do", an special viewing at the Sheldon Concert Hall, on Wednesday, May 2nd from 6:00 to 8:30. Join us! 

More Details


More About Cannes International Festival of Creativity

* It is considered the largest gathering of worldwide advertising professionals, designers, digital innovators and marketers.

* It was inspired by the famous, international film festival in Cannes and uses the same cinema screens.


Why 2011 was Special

* 2011’s Cannes Lions festival included talks from will.i.am,  James Murdoch, Facebook's Carolyn Everson, Piers Morgan,Aaron Sorkin, David Simon and Eric Schmidt. In 2011, a record 28,282 entries were received.

* The seminars this year compromised of a mixture of established advertising agencies (Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi, R/GA, Grey, Leo Burnett), super brands (Coca Cola, Ford, Time Warner) and tech giants (Google, Adobe, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft).
* In its 58th year, the International Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity rewarded agencies and marketers from around the world for excellence in creativity on many levels. Over 28,000 entries were judged by thirteen juries during the course of two weeks in June. 


Who should attend?

* Marketing and brand managers who want to learn what makes video go viral.

* Creatives who want to be inspired.

* International marketers who want to see winning strategies from around the world, for products ranging from insurance to plastic. 




Emerson Debuts New TV Spots in "It's Never Been Done" Campaign

Erin Moloney - Thursday, April 19, 2012

Emerson Electric, a product manufacturer and engineering services provider, is a multinational organization headquartered here in Saint Louis, MO. 

They just announced the launch of some very creative and impressive television spots as part of their "It's Never Been Done" campaign, which aims to "provide innovative engineering solutions across its different business units, including network power, climate technologies, process management and industrial automation," according to a recent article by BtoB Magazine.


"With these customer stories, we want to show that we enable companies that are operating in extreme areas—whether they're hot, cold or far away—to conduct business 24/7, 365 days a year,” Kathy Button Bell (LinkedIn), CMO at Emerson, told BtoB.


You can view the commercials at Emerson.com/NeverBeenDone.


The Game Has Changed - A New Paradigm for Brand Enagement from the Inside-Out

Erin Moloney - Friday, February 24, 2012

Last night, BMA Saint Louis held an informative and thought-provoking event at Maritz, hosted by Director of Brand Strategy Paula Godar (@paulagodar), and featuring a presentation by Mary Beth McEuen, VP and Executive Director of the Maritz Institute (@marybethmceuen). Here are my notes from our session:


The topic was The Game Has Changed - A New Paradigm for Brand Engagement from the Inside-Out. Paula introduced Mary Beth, and McEuen began her presentation by telling us a little bit about what the Maritz Institute is all about. She said that the Institute is focused on advancing understanding of people through the sciences, through neuroscience in particular. It's about figuring out what makes people tick. And isn't that what marketing is all about as well? I know that at least, as we better understand what drives and motivates people, we can become better marketers. 


When McEuen was over marketing and brand strategy at Maritz 10 years ago, she said they started down the path of "Brand Alignment" - This is what captured her attention and the attention of other senior marketers and leaders at that time. The leaders at Maritz began to have a conversation about authenticity. They began to understand that marketing needed to move beyond a place of simply communicating messages but to a place where you engage with people in an authentic way. Today this need is understood generally throughout the marketing community, says McEuen, "but it doesn't mean we're doing it just yet."

Her work at Maritz evolved into a fascination with the concept of a brand, what is a brand. McEuen gave us the metaphor of a bucket. "Our memories are not very good," she said. " We don't actually remember all facets of an experience." In fact, she went on to explain, many don't even enter our interpretation. We kind of filter through it. 

"Even in this room tonight, everyone will have a different experience. But, everyone will walk away really remembering the emotion and feelings they hold surrounding that experience."

She explained that as the bucket fills with water, every time we have an experience with Maritz (or any given brand), it's like a drop in the bucket. The bucket might be crystal clear and beautiful or it may be kind of cloudy if you haven't had the greatest of experiences, but another drop will enter into the bucket. "Every single drop matters," she said. 

"Every once in a while there's something that knocks you into the experience of truly positive, or truly negative, and those really shape things."

And so, as they continued their analysis of what it truly means to monitor experiences and engagement as they influence the brand impression, the team at Maritz developed a tag line.

 
Tag line of Maritz Institute: The Science and Art of People and Potential

"From the beginning, Maritz based client solutions on science,said McEuen. She mentioned B.F. Skinner and the "behavioralism" movement in psychology as having shaped our early thinking. Now Maslow has had an influence as well. But Skinner and Maslow have pretty different perspectives on things.

Maslow believed "Organizations designed right are vehicles for human potential," said McEuen. Steve Maritz realized that we were missing a link to the more recent sciences which is why he created the Maritz institute. 

The "Art" is really important in this tag line, she explained. "Science for science sake is really not all that interesting."

Artful design of marketing and business practices means that "you know when you've done it well when it really connects with people."

"The Maritz Institute is really a network of people," said McEuen. It is made up of four people officially, but the network includes folks at Harvard, across academia, and about 300 people across Maritz. 

The next stage of her presentation focused on: How do we need to think differently about engaging the key stakeholders within businesses.

"Ultimately our goal is to have a positive impact on stakeholders. It should be good for business and good for the individuals -- a win/win, enrichment midset," said McEuen.

This really gets us to "Why and How The Game Has Changed."

McEuen referenced several books at this point that are recommended reading: "Consumer Shift" by Andy Hines and "Marketing 3.0" by Philip Kotler.
She said of Kotler's work that he shows us how Marketing 1.0 was product-centric, one to one. Marketing 2.0 is consumer-oriented, one to many. And Marketing 3.0 is values-driven, many to many (a network, collaboration). Hines believed that we are entering into the age of a more creative society and of human spirit, the rise of the cultural creatives, the knowledge worker.

McEuen discussed Maslow, revisited: When we hit the great recession, we saw that people in general reverted, as we expected, down the Maslow hierarchy toward basic needs such as security, but during this recent recession, it seems to be categorizing people up, toward expression.

McEuen said, "There are rapid changes going on in societal values, and business is going to have to keep up."

Regarding consumerism and "stuff", McEuen said "We've been living among the values of challenge, achievement, competition, materialism, prestige. Now we're hitting a stage of "when is there enough?" When we have less resources, some folks are saying, "This is enough. I have enough..." and then they move up the pyramid into trying to find meaning: collaboration, thrill-seeking, community, freedom, novelty, self-expression, experimentation, passion, authenticity.

Individual success starts to morph into collaborative expression.

When you think about consumers trying to find these values, what brands come to mind that are currently tapping into this? The audience replied with "Apple", "Target" and similar brands.

McEuen then said that it's going to be important that as marketers and brand managers, we understand how important it is the ways in which these shifts are impacting employees. And more importantly, how engaging employees properly due to these shifts will have an impact on your ability to engage your customers and/or prospects and drive the business forward. Thus, the importance of employee engagement, especially considering these recent developments in values. 

Employees are most engaged at companies that seem to highly value: Stimulation, Self-direction, Universalism and Benevolence.

McEuen displayed a slide with the following quote: "Businesses are social systems. All social systems are underpinned with assumptions about human behavior. The problem is many of our current assumptions are wrong or out-of-date."
- Peter Drucker

Our new goal as marketers and as leaders is going to be:
Delivering on the brand promise from the inside-out so that it's authentic. We need to create places of "engagement."
Leverage reward and recognition, said McEuen. This has an impact on engagement, and ultimately on customer satisfaction.

Southwest Airlines is known for being a place of engagement for its employees. Think of companies, websites, group meetings, that are places of engagement.

Everything has to be participatory now. It can't be static or else it's missing the mark.

McEuen shared with us the Three People Principles That Guide Business Practices.  

1. Humans are both emotional and rational in their decision-making. McEuen referenced the metaphor of the Elephant, the Rider, and the Path they follow: Adapted from psychologist Jonathan Haidt), the Elephant represents emotion, the Rider is rationality, and the Path indicates the focus or direction. The Rider is analytical. She directs the Elephant, but the Elephant must be emotionally engaged in order to respond to the Rider (an Elephant is too big to move if it’s resisting). Once the Rider and Elephant are ready to go–once you’ve gotten your team, class, or self convinced and motivated– you need to give them directions down a Path.In order to create successful change in any context, leaders and teachers need to engage their employees, peers, students, or selves both emotionally and rationally while also providing a clear direction. "If you think about the rider as reason, elephant as emotion," said McEuen, "when the two disagree, who's going to win?" The audience laughed. >

2. People are both emotional and rational in their decision-making. They are driven by multiple motivators.
3. People are both individual and social.

Lastly, McEuen gave us the four key motivational areas of individuals and explained their significance in our ability to engage and tap these motivators in our marketing initiatives. This is based on the work of Professor Paul Lawrence and Dean Nitin Nohria of Harvard Business School.

The Multiple Motivators
1. Acquire: driven to acquire stuff, status, resources Emotions: competitive, powerful, superior 
2. Defend: driven to defend status, stuff, ideas, relationships Emotions: Angry, frightened, anxious * We really "get" the first two as marketers.
3. Bond: drive to engage, cooperate, "fit in" to the community Emotions: Cooperative, protective, grateful 
4. Create: driven to create better self, team, organization, world Emotions: Awe, curiosity, wonder Emotions are highly contagious - we don't keep them to ourselves.  The brain is a meaning-making device, it's always trying to make sense of things. 

It's much harder to understand and tap into the last two, but it's possible.

What's your favorite iPad, iPhone, Android or tablet app for productivity, marketing or sales?

BMA Marketing Chair - Friday, February 10, 2012

What’s your favorite business productivity, marketing, or sales APP?   Many of us or using iPhones, smart phones, iPads and tablets and one of the best things about these devises includes the great APPs for business. But finding, downloading and reviewing these apps can be a hassle. 

 

An easy way to find out about great apps is from your friends, colleagues and co-workers. One of my favorite apps is Cardmunch. You just scan a business card, upload it, it is sent to a REAL person, and then it comes back to you ready to click to send an invite to join you on LinkedIn. Plus you receive a Vcard and file to add to your CMS, Outlook or other contact software. I use to pay someone to do this for me. Now I'm sitting in meetings and with a few clicks have the person's contact information and an invite to LinkedIn.

 

So share with us some of your favorite productivity, marketing and sales apps.

Comment below and tell us YOUR favorite APP!  No sales pitch here please. Just sharing info :)

YouTube Insights for B-to-B Marketers

Erin Moloney - Thursday, November 10, 2011

Caroline Lorusso, Display and YouTube Account Manager at Google, presented to BMA's St. Louis chapter at our November luncheon today. Caroline gave the group some actionable tips on how to leverage YouTube for B-to-B video marketing purposes during her presentation, and we captured them quickly on video with Caroline after her presentation. 

Below the videos, you'll find my notes from her presentation, including stats on YouTube growth and usage, examples of great B-to-B marketers with compelling YouTube channels, key takeaways, and some fascinating news about YouTube Original Channels (coming soon) and Google+ for Business. We hope you enjoyed the luncheon as much as we did, and if you missed it, be sure to check out all the details in this post! 



YouTube is a valuable marketing tool and presents a huge opportunity you can’t afford to miss out on

 

1.       Snapshot of the online video landscape & its incredible growth

a.       1/3 of all time spent online is watching online video

b.      YouTube has 3 billion video views per day, 15% increase in daily view over last year

c.       48 hours of video content is uploaded to youtube every minute around the world

d.      B2B customers are using YouTube – branded searches have doubled in the past year

e.      YouTube ranked 2nd largest search engine, only behind Google.com

f.        Over 660,000 Internet users are referred from YouTube to a B2B branded site each month

g.       Has direct response advantages – referrals from YouTube are converting

h.      YouTub connects: 54% of B2B executives share work related videos daily or weekly with colleagues or prospects

i.        "Brands don’t sell brands. People sell brands." Good content or a good experience is inherently social, as always.

k.       46% have said something good about a brand or company on social sites

l.        20% of tweets are free brand advertising

m.    Social media has become the center of brand conversations and feedback

n.      Turns passive viewers into active brand advocates.

o.      Gives users and brands a stage to express themselves and share with others.

p.      70% of viewers watch a YouTube video because a friend/colleague recommended it.

q.      600 YouTube videos are shared via Twitter every minute.

r.        100 million videos are commented on, shared or liked every minute

 

2.       Playbook for business marketers to develop an effective strategy

a.       Establish  > Build > Sustain > Own (your audience)

b.      Establish your audience -- Brand Channels:

                                                              i.      Create a home base of video content for your brand

                                                            ii.      No cost

                                                          iii.      You can pull in real-time Twitter updates to your YouTube channel

                                                           iv.      Good examples: 3M, FedEx and ExxonMobil

                                                             v.      Check out 3M’s intro video that plays automatically when you arrive at their brand channel – great way 

to introduce the brand’s capabilities

                                                           vi.      Generate traffic and video views to your channel via paid media

                                                         vii.      A common misconception is “If you build it, they will come”

                                                       viii.      ExxonMobil used promoted video on YouTube – you can set up a simple account at a $5/day limit through AdWords

                                                           ix.      Sharpie launched a homepage takeover ad during back to school shopping season

                                                             x.      Takeaways

1.       Create engaging content that ignites passion for your brand

2.       Add social gadgets on your channel that promote engagement

c.    Build Your Audience:

                                                              i.      Ecomagination line dance challenge. For every donation GE donated

1.       1.5 million channel views and 1,000 submissions, 92% lift in channel engagement

2.       Used TV, online display ads and video ads to

3.       They modified their channel to allow users to submit their own videos to GE’s channel – and had someone reviewing the videos first

                                                            ii.      You can re-engage your audience on YT at each new initiative

                                                          iii.     52% of users follow or fan companies or brands.

1.       Target your audience: attributes are demographics geographic, language. Behavior includes interest category, third-party audience data, data type

2.       Re-engage fan base by continuing video content promotion and production across YouTube prior to each new initiative

d.      Sustain your audience

                                                              i.      Capitalize on your unique value proposition on YT

1.       Leverage your brand’s ownable personalities and offerings. The Marines are doing this well. (It’s the Marine Corps’ birthday today)

a.       Invitation to potential recruits to ask a marine a question through an interactive question. The community ranks the video up or down and then an actual marine answers the question on video

b.      One video had over 12,000 views in four weeks

2.       Update your channel regularly with fresh content to encourage repeat viewership – a new video every 3 or 4 weeks is ideal

e.      Own Your Audience

                                                              i.      How American Express strengthened their brand connection with small business owners. Nov 25th, the day after black Friday, they called “Small business day”

                                                            ii.      My Business Story on their site. Offers small businesses a tool to create and post free videos about their businesses

                                                          iii.      Top 36 featured on the YouTube homepage on Saturday, the 25th

                                                           iv.      “My business may be small, but my story isn’t.”

 

New innovation from Google: YouTube + for business, original channels

1.       YouTube Original Channels

a.       TV quality content across 100 new channels, 18 content genres

b.      As social as the web

c.       Will slowly un-roll at very end of this year and really announce in Q1 2012. Interested advertisers should give 1.5 months lead time.

d.      Verticals are broad and narrow – in each one, you’ll see a portfolio of channels with their own unique point of view

e.      Power of celebrity and largest media brands in the world, men’s health, wall street journal, etc.

f.        TV’s proven programmers such as CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, VH1, MTV former heads of networks.

g.       Producers of some of the most popular TV shows

h.      3 advertising options

                                                                          i.      Brand Platforms – buy out a category and become sole advertiser in a specific category – allows you to get in early and make a big investment

                                                                        ii.      Channel sponsorships – more selective investment to own 100% of the content on a channel and potentially within the programming

                                                                      iii.      Featured  media packs – how you’re used to buying on youtube today. You buy one of the existing targeted media packs. Will include some existing content with new content too.


2.       Google + Your Business

a.       Collection of tools and products to help you get closer to your customers

b.      Your business’ identity on Google Plus

c.       Pages are profiles but specifically built for businesses, designed to grow and evolve to fit the needs of a business.

d.      Basics: Get your page up and ready

e.      Your page includes a +1 count and button – it’s not just the total number of people who plus’d this page. It’s a total count of # of people who plus’d the brand - - on the website and on the plus page

f.        Circles allow you to group your followers and who you’re following

g.       Hangouts – let your imagination run wild about how to use hangouts.

                                                                          i.      Politicians host town hall meetings

                                                                        ii.      Celebrities hang out with fans

                                                                      iii.      Michael Dell has been hanging out with customers

                                                                       iv.      “Hangouts On Air” allows Google to broadcast popular, public hangouts

                                                                         v.      A unique opportunity to engage with your customers

                                                                       vi.      Can add a layer of personality and personal approachability to businesses

                                                                     vii.      Limited to 10 people in one video room – this will increase soon to 15, then 20, and potentially eventually a mass reach audience

                                                                   viii.      Imagine you have a new product launching

                                                                       ix.      Possibly launching in the future: Ability to record a hangout meeting for upload to YouTube

                                                                         x.      ConEducation is a good example of using YouTube for continuing education

                                                                       xi.      The +1 button appears over 5 billion times on the web daily, making it the fastest growing social sharing button ever


Social Media Response Management: Are We Doing It?

BMA Marketing Chair - Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Apparently most companies are not effectively and efficiently responding to Social Media that is directed at their company.

According to a Cone Business in Social Media study, 93 percent of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 percent believe a company should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media. In fact, 56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.

When asked specific types of interactions, Americans who use social media believe:

•Companies should use social networks to solve my problems (43%)

  • •Companies should solicit feedback on their products and services (41%)
  • •Companies should develop new ways for consumers to interact with their brand (37%)
  • •Companies should market to consumers (25%)

But according to research by Maritz Research, 71% of Twitter users have not received a reply to their complaints posted on Twitter. 86% say they would love to hear from the company.

Why are companies not responding to social media or not doing a good job of it? What is the best way to effectively manage social media response?

Many marketers are looking at social media for only lead generation, branding and awareness campaigns. But missing the boat when it comes to customer service issues involving social media will most certainly influence lead generation and branding.

Social media response management (SMRM) is the topic of the BMA luncheon event on October 20th.  Anyone involved with social media, marketing, and customer service should attend.

Unleash Your Content in B2B Marketing

Erin Moloney - Thursday, June 30, 2011
One very informative and valuable session at this year's Business Marketing Association National Conference, called "BMA Unleash", was the "Unleash Your Content" session, which featured Andrew Bosman of Navigant Consulting, Bob Pearson (@BobPearson1845) of WCG (a marketing communications company), and Ben Edwards (@BenEdw) of IBM. 

Andrew Bosman of Navigant kicked off this panel with a presentation all about Navigant.com and the unique integration of social content the company has accomplished. Check out the Navigant.com "Insights & Events" section. This area of the site is a singular destination for the company's unique content and thought leadership. 

They use the pages within this section for email campaigns and other initiatives. "Direct marketing drives people to vanity URLs that end up being inside the 'Insights and Events' section," said Bosman. The Healthcare section also has many  jumping off points to key contacts, materials produced by them, news, whitepapers, newsletter and much more. The company also created vanity URLs for their experts, such as Navigant.com/Francis
The site is well-designed and logically laid out, even with all of the fresh content it has. Articles and landing pages drive visitors back to a central hub, and the site contains quick, digestible information.

I thought this site was a fantastic example of a company that is clearly empowering its internal experts to publicly demontsrate their thought leadership with frequent insights and perspectives in blog posts, white papers, etc... and then empowers those experts by attributing the work to their name very clearly and making it easy for visitors to directly get in touch with the expert who authored the content. The only concern I had when browsing Navigant.com was whether they are "advertising" their top talent to other companies. The easier you make it to reach the experts who work for you, are you making it easier for head-hunters to pick them off? Just something to think about.

Bob Pearson, CTO & Media Officer of WCG was next. Bob had worked at Dell and had formed their social media practices, which is pretty impressive. He is also the author of the book, Pre-Commerce: How Companies and Customers are Transforming Business Together.
 
Pearson shared with us three key Insights that apply to everyone:
 
Customers like to do 3 things online more than other actions:
1. Share ideas
2. Share product knowledge
3. Help peers with problems

Ben Edwards, VP Digital Strategy and Development, IBM, works for a company of 430,000 people. That's a tall order.
The company's mission is high-value integration of hardware, software and services into solutions at the point of demand of the client. And so Edwards' said that their mission of empowering the IBMer (IBM employee) to produce content is one of the most effective methods they have used to further the brand.
 
One of the challenges has been figuring out how to scale the mediation of experts, products, IBMers, etc. With that many people internally and the sheer volume of content that can be created, this challenge is no surprise to me. 

Edwards said IBM has followed the following three steps to help organize and prioritize their experts in company-based social media content: 
  1. 1. Identify who are the technical experts, business consulting experts - the right or best expert
  2. 2. Do they show up at their best through social media?
  3. 3. Serve them up publicly in the right context to demonstrate their expertise

These were just some of the highlights from the session, but overall it was chock-full of ideas and strategies for leveraging your company's internal expertise for great content that can be leveraged for sales support or lead generation practices, and it hit the nail on the head in terms of speaking specifically to a large crowd of B2B marketers in a language they can understand and get value out of. 


 
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