"THE INDUSTRIOUS MARKETER" BLOG

The Half-Life of B2B Marketing

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There’s no question that these are challenging times.

Doing more with less—or simply doing less—is an economic necessity.  You cut what you can, you keep what you must.

Across my network—across global industry—marketing and sales budgets have been slashed to the bone as business volume continues in freefall. The rationales vary. For some, this is a short-term tactic. Others restructure to drastically reduce above the line expenses to keep operating margins at target level—recognizing significant restructuring cost below the line, of course. And, then, there are the fortunate few in the right business at the right time who are capturing new business, yet still trim marketing spend because they [believe that they] can afford to. They’re all banking on the half-life of last year’s marketing effort to carry them through. And, when it comes to sustaining market awareness, it will.   

As if that were all that good marketing does.

What’s really expendable?

That, I find, depends on business orientation. If your game is managing the channel (wholesale distributor), you’re a marketing business by definition; customer retention and transactional efficiency are top priority. If you’re in an operating business that make things (manufacturer) or makes things happen (complex services provider), production, supply chain, and customer service will take precedence. In any case, for many engineering-oriented, operation-focused, sales-driven organizations, marketing isn’t strategic, it’s simply sales support.

Thus, the cuts. Leaving the business exposed.

We're talking game-changing risk.

Attending to restructuring and capacity shifts are mission critical. But the big risk is that you focus too much on what’s happening inside your company—and neglect your market. No, this isn’t about promotion, this is about how you will compete in the most dynamic business environment our generation has experienced. Unless you’re strictly a commodity business, your company’s future rests on your ability to deliver more value, more consistently, to more buyers who are like your best customers.     

Now is the time to invest in strategic marketing.

Mine that customer data in your CRM. Get your arms around distinct market segment needs, behaviors and trends. Probe the market to get research insight on what and where you need to tweak your offerings. Evaluate your portfolio, investigate expanding it via acquisitions or narrowing it via divestiture. Uncover new revenue streams and growth ideas. Forge new channel relationships and partnerships.  In other words, invest in your company’s future. 

Call it whatever you want. This is the marketing that industrial B2B needs now.     

What's more, do it well and your business development team will cheer.

Over the next several posts, The Industrious Marketer will drill down to what you can do on a tight budget (we’re realists, after all) to get started.   

DOWNLOAD OUR LATEST WHITE PAPER
In the meantime, read my recent post about B2B market research and download our B2B Point of View white paper "Ten Tips for B2B Market Research". 

The Social Media Counter-Revolution

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Perusing the New York Times last evening, the future hit me over the head like a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica.*

• Micro-blog tool Twitter got front page coverage for its role as a beacon for Moldovan anti-Communist protestors (until the authorities cut off Internet access, routing protestors to older cell phone instant messaging technology)
  
  
• Magazines including Time and even Scholastic have defied the American Society of Magazine Editors to blur the lines between ads and articles (horrors!)
  
  
• Content arbitrageur Google, disguised as a search engine,  defends its use of newspaper headlines and story snippets as the publishers scramble to reinvent their business models —while also defending new digital library of scanned orphan books in a quarrel with university libraries who are the keepers of these out-of-print gems of cultural history

The social media technology revolution is reconfiguring how we work, how we communicate, and increasingly, how we become educated. 

Citizen journalists (a.k.a. bloggers) proliferate without limit (or standards). Editorial is increasingly promotional. Knowledge (or at least the raw materials) is be available where you happen to be, on the device you prefer to use. But what does it get you?  Can you trust it?

Yet like so many technology shifts throughout history (think telephone systems or transportation networks), the full value won't emerge until the networks reach critical mass.  The value IS the network, based on scale, flexibililty and open access. Linear connections (e.g. early party line phone systems, traditional media journalism, and conventional e-learning sites) channelled information exchange but didn't require shared engagement. Wikipedia showed us how even a small group of highly involved contributors sharing knowledge can create something real without formal process and a minimum of rules.

In the new social network models, sharing is the default standard. In fact, one must opt out to avoid the shared environment.  My Tweets have the potential to reach everyone unless I choose the direct message option.

There is both upside and downside to this.  Shared information enables greater freedom, literal and figurative.  But the noise emanating from so many fragmented channels overwhelms our capacity to make sense of it all. Which is the best source of insight on the Darfur situation in Sudan?  Encyclopedia Brittanica, Wikipedia, or an activist's blog?  All or none, depending on the context. This opens the door for new knowledge intermediaries to step in and make things simple again. As is happening with Twitter, whose users migrate to TwitterDeck and other aggregators. If only someone could tell me which posts I must read and those to ignore—to clear the channel for me, customized to my unique way of learning, so that I can (again) relax and read in the evenings. 

The history of technology is the story of revolutions. 

Innovation, resistance to change, counter-revolution, and, finally, better things emerging from the conflict.

Still, for the present, where "sharing" isn't a norm in an industry (process, resources or assets), resistance to social media trends will persist. Until one day, when the critical mass is achieved. Minds—and business opportunities—will open as social media becomes the new norm. And a huge entree for the information gatekeepers.

All that was old becomes new again. 

* One can still buy Encyclopedia Britannica in print form, as well as the newer DVD and online versions.  The company has recovered from its disasterous shift to a "media advertising revenue model" (giving content away free online, subsidized by Web-based advertising) and has successfully expanded their subscriber base across old and new technology platforms.     

NEED HELP?
If your company is struggling with how social media fits in with your business processes, marketingFOLIO can help.  If you've got customers, you need to understand how these networks operate.  We'll provide insight on how your industry is (or is not) embracing these tools, who's using them, and what strategies you can use to gain and sustain advantage. Contact us for a consultation.

REFERENCES
If you're interested in these April 2009 New York Times articles referenced, here are the links to NYTimes.com:

• Google's Plan for Out-of-Print Books is Challenged
• Google Insists It's a Friend to Newspapers
  
• Magazines Blur Line Between Ad and Article

Women in Logistics: Is industry exploiting us (enough)?

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Earlier this week, I spent the better part of an afternoon addressing a roomful of women (and a few hardy men) who attended the Jacksonville (FL) CSCMP Roundtable on “Women in Logistics”. As one of four female executives on the panel, it was an opportunity to share some real world experiences. Having spent 90% of my career buying, selling or strategizing supply chain services, I had a sheaf of comments.  The insights flowed as we discussed how we got hooked on an industry that most people are only vaguely aware of, how we’ve overcome the obstacles of this traditional male bastion, and what good advice we could offer.

Steel-Toed Heels Help

It was clear that this particular set of women had run the career gauntlet with relatively few bruises and many rewarding experiences.  Our secret?  Work smart, love it or leave it, know your value.  Be sensitive to how others deal with women in authority—but don’t shy away from dealing straight on contentious issues. As Maureen Cunningham, Crowley Liner Services’ VP operations, put it, “If you have to go toe-to-toe with someone, then you go toe-to-to with them”.  
  

Using both sides of your brain helps, too.

Then, an article in this week’s EyeForTransport e-alert grabbed my attention.  “Let’s hear it for the Women” reported that a new study examining the South African logistics industry found a link between companies’ profitability and how they process information—specifically, leaders’ abilities to read the signs of a changing market and make changes anticipating consequences. EFT drew a parallel between this “intuitive” capacity and women’s agility with complexity and reputation for communications and collaboration.  Are they really saying that women’s intuition makes better business?

Engineering News’ summary of the same study didn’t spin the findings quite so dramatically.  But it did cite conclusions that complex global value chains put exceedingly tough demands on companies.  What’s lacking, the study reported, is leadership ability to rationally strategize and take control while placing emphasis on conducting business in an efficient and objective manner.  Evidently these traits are not abundant in many companies—but they do mirror attributes of cooperation and collaboration often associated with women’s working style.  

Are women more competent or comfortable with managing complexity? 

Or are we just more adept at working both sides of our brains (creative/sensing and analytic/judging) simultaneously?  When I asked Maureen Cunningham to comment, she was unequivocal.  “I absolutely believe that we are able to predict and overcome challenges…we use logic to arrive at our decisions…but I do feel that our 'senses' work to our benefit.”

Okay, so if a senior female executive with an operations background is comfortable with the women’s intuition premise, what’s the view from the lower rungs of the industry?

Just last week, I had connected with a female over-the-road driver who had shared her perspectives on the industry from her Freightliner cab.  TruckerDesiree is her nom de Twitter. (@TruckerDesiree) 

Trucking is a thinking job.

As Desiree pointed out, operating the vehicle is only a part of the truck driver’s job. Trucking, she said, is “a service industry that takes patience and professional courtesy” not unlike the hospitality and hotel group of Disney World where she’d previously worked for several years.  She says that women are an underappreciated resource—yet often have the critical skills needed.  Patience, diligence, and discipline.  Comfort with multi-tasking, attention to detail, legible writing and willingness to ask for directions.  “Trucking is a thinking job, not brute strength”, according to Desiree.  “The weak link is aggressively recruiting [student drivers and others] who have no skills to think in critical situations or communicate effectively. Being here on the front line, I can see things that a person accustomed to these cracks can’t, because they see it as the way it is."  She also said that carriers, shippers and consignees may have been able to ignore the cost and service gaps in the good times, but not now, not with the severely weakened economy. And, she predicted, “smart companies will recognize this”. 

Maybe.  Or perhaps it’s time to just let the women handle more of the load. 

If you're interested....

The Jacksonville Business Journal reported on this CSCMP event (link to it here). 

While looking for stats for this article, my Google search turned up some interesting things about women in the global workplace:

• March is Women’s Heritage Month, sponsored by the National Women’s History Project—who knew?  This year’s theme “Women Taking the Lead to Save our Planet” celebrates women’s contribution to the ongoing “green movement”.   
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in early February 2009 that women now outnumber men at the office—which reflects both long term trends and impact of the current economy.  More women are working and more are doing so part time.  Sadly, some of the gain for women is due to jobs lost by men in this recession’s business contractions.  
• Over the last two decades, women entering the non-farm economy workforce have contributed more to GDP growth than either new technology or the growth of China and India.