Each social network has its own persona. We have the style icon, all looks, in Instagram and the hotheaded, no-filter urbanite that is Twitter. Then, there’s the socialite, Facebook, and the professional, LinkedIn – both who seem to be undergoing respective identity crises.
Traditionally a sharing point for family and friends, Facebook is crossing into professional realms. TechCrunch recently shared Facebook’s announcement that it is testing out job features. The idea is to give businesses the ability to promote job listings from their company Facebook pages. These recruitment features include job post creation, posting, and even the ability to receive applications. Similar to applying directly through LinkedIn, Facebook is considering a prepopulated format when applying through the network.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has tested LinkedIn-esque features. Last year, Facebook tested out “Profile Tags” that showcased a user’s interests, skills, and personality. Sound familiar? Take a peek at your LinkedIn endorsements.
LinkedIn users seem to be favoring the social aspect of the professional social network. My colleague finds about every third LinkedIn update on her feed to be more personal than professional. However, it’s difficult to pinpoint what’s driving this behavior.
A confusion of what is “work related” is possibly to blame for the increasing clutter on our LinkedIn feeds. For example, the included quote was pulled from a lengthy LinkedIn post.
The quote was accompanied by a big, smiling, “selfie.” Though work and career are essential themes to the post, the emotional description and personal image reflect Facebook’s intimate reputation more than that of the professional networking psyche originally associated with LinkedIn.
The pseudo-work related post formula has spread like wildfire across LinkedIn. Always, a personal photograph follows the assertion. Another “selfie” shot I came across this morning was captioned, “Ready for my first interview!” I can’t image any interviewer not checking the LinkedIn profile of candidates before meeting.
Alongside the emotional, personal posts popping up throughout your updates are the political statements. Statements an employee wouldn’t dare utter in the office are suddenly posted for every co-worker to see in dark gray Source Sans font.
Rather than these posts being overlooked, LinkedIn users can’t resist the bait. Each political post is accompanied by Tweet-worthy replies from every part of the political spectrum. Even posts without political themes are subject to these users.
There’s no confusion of these being unrelated to work (unless one’s industry is, in fact, politics) so what’s driving users to share these on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn may be, accidentally or not, encouraging unprofessional behavior. Just as Facebook has begun to mimic LinkedIn, LinkedIn is mimicking other social networks, especially those heavy on the social. Earlier this year, LinkedIn began developing its own version of Facebook’s “Instant Articles”.
Nowadays anyone can “publish an article” to LinkedIn’s “news” in the same style used by any unprofessional blogging platform including the micro-blogging network Tumblr, with its neo-new wave, post-punk persona. After publishing a blog an article, it will be conveniently placed into the view of their connections via LinkedIn’s “Recommended Reads” emails’ “Published by your network” section. If you play the game right, as outlined here by this highly-shared author, LinkedIn Editors will push your news to the featured #dailyrundowns. Though curated by the human hand, the Daily Rundown sometimes consolidates trends across all interests, creating one noisy summary. Take a look at the below headline on death.
In a world of information overload, the last thing we need is a noisy, one-stop shop. From retail to news to TV channels, our society is demanding filtered, specific access points to what we consume. If LinkedIn loses its sense of self, we lose a productive, professional networking tool and the relevant-information sharing possibilities it offers. On the flip side, if Facebook loses its carefree persona, I may have to limit the number of cat photos I post.
Still not sure the lines are being blurred? Check out this comment made on LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner’s recent update:
Finalizing your 2017 B2B Marketing strategy? Make sure you check in on what your B2C colleagues are doing too. In the annual “State of the Connected Customer” report for 2016 by Salesforce Research, surveyed marketers identified getting smart about personalization as a top requirement for meeting their marketing expectations in 2017.
Personalizing consumer messages has become the status quo for most B2C marketers. I have nearly a dozen emails sitting in my inbox, from this weekend alone, recommending cosmetics for my personal skin type and mobile apps for my personal habits. However, personalized messages aren’t just for B2C. Even for B2B, buyers increasingly voice that they want to be treated like humans, not numbers.
Forbes predicts that in 2017, B2B marketing focuses will include:
The two trends aren’t so separated. The answer to humanizing B2B messages with personalization can actually be found in those new data and analytic technologies. In the coming year, personalized experiences for business buyers will emanate from multiple channels including deployment of digital content, social interaction, and user communities.
The 2016 “State of Marketing” report by Salesforce Research shows over half of marketing leaders worldwide are set to increase spending on marketing tools and technology over the next couple years. The investments are driven directly by customer demand. For example,
Image: “State of the Connected Customer” Salesforce Research
For a tangible representation of this statistic, consider the possibilities of personalized, B2B marketing.
Targeted Messages and Target Markets
Your internal data reveals businesses are more likely to invest in your consulting services within a quarter of a new COO coming in. Using external data analysis of executive movements, you can deliver personalized messages to your target customers, automatically and effectively.
Engagement and Relationships
Your hospitality special events team is looking for opportunity indications around a prospect such as new industry conferences or changes in marketing spending. Events are automatically discovered, enabling your personalized messages to potential buyers that encourage your hospitality services over those of your competition.
With in-depth data and analytics becoming increasingly available, effective and personalized B2B marketing has become possible. It’s time to see your business buyers as more than just businesses.
Digital business has made a once linear marketplace, fast-paced and in constant change, making it difficult for stagnant leadership mindsets to remain competitive. Successful business tactics that worked in the past, will leave you in the dust today. To optimize a business strategy, one must be able to adapt quickly to change, and be aware of risks, opportunities, market changes and trends. Enterprises must demonstrate agility to strive in the current marketplace by balancing essential leadership roles throughout the C-Suite.
Letting go of past behaviors is difficult, but with digital business dictating the customer market, enterprise leaders have to “let it go.” Gartner’s recent research report “Take Digital to the Core — Remaster Your Leadership Using Six Personas to Win in Digital Business” forms the argument that C-Suite level executives must learn to adapt to new digital business, as new technologies are constantly disrupting industries and more and more companies become marginalized. The article warns leaders that using “mature” business practices will cause enterprises to miss out breakthrough opportunities.
Adapting to change is not easy, and rather than changing your leadership team, teams should instead self-assess, find strong traits, acknowledge weaknesses and promote to fill in the voids to create a rock-star, digitally-ready, executive team. As Gartner points out in this research, management behaviors should be complementary of one another, and these six personas will help fill in the gaps:
In this research, Gartner makes a strong argument that by re-mastering leadership styles, with these six personas, your enterprise will be fit for the modern day challenges of digital business. Business competition and practices, specifically within the C-suite, have changed in the past five years forcing leaders, executives and VPs to readjust. People need to adapt to digital business no matter how successful previous tactics were. Fill in leadership gaps with a digital-business-ready executive team!
To read the full Gartner report you can register for free here: “Take Digital to the Core — Remaster Your Leadership Using Six Personas to Win in Digital Business”
To read additional posts on FirstRain buyer Personas:
This is part of the FirstRain Persona Series.
Customers are demanding more of a digital experience, and the rise of a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) has soared to fulfill the need. Providing customers with the most valuable digital experience is a CDO’s primary objective.
In the past, executives with digital oversight roles concentrated on magnifying a company’s online presence and brand. Today, however, the role of a Chief Digital Officer is truly focused on the customer experience.
The fact of the matter is that buyers are no longer making purchasing decisions, or accessing portals solely from a desktop computer, but rather via mobile platforms, emails, and social media —on the go. Thus, CDO’s are challenged with meeting the demands of a fast-paced consumer society that is always moving.
Customers access platforms and consume vast amounts of product information via different touch points: cell phones, tablets, emails, internal enterprise platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the web, video streams, vines, Periscope, etc. Today’s digital market demands seamless execution from all these platforms and CDO’s are leading that charge.
Coupled with a strong, robust digital strategy a CDO facilitates the customer experience, but how can that help grow your business?
A deep understanding of market trends and consumer behavior must be leveraged across all customer touch points; from small marketing campaigns, to large scale product launches. This often involves leaders in business development, and becomes fundamental to helping a business evolve in today’s marketplace.
A recent McKinsey article on “The Transformer in Chief” stresses, “It’s up to the CDO to identify those functions where digital is critical: for example, investing in automation capabilities to rapidly respond to customer interactions, developing sophisticated reporting and analytics capabilities to interpret customer needs, building innovative interfaces to gather customer data (for example, an alternative payment method), and creating mechanisms to deliver content and offers across all relevant channels.”
Chief Digital Officers must identify the customer facing journey, drive customer engagement, and make sure that the dashboard touch points that she decides to implement for her company responds to market demands in real time. They are responsible for putting the tools in place to interpret customer insights with a main strategic goal of responding to customer engagement needs.
Customer intelligence tools such as FirstRain, helps interpret customer behavior via market trends, industry changes, and social media. Target market analysis of what is trending in relationship to business goals and objectives are crucial for driving a business forward. After all, the customer is always right, right?
Fundamentally understanding customer needs and how they intersect with revenue goals can make or break a digital strategy, making the role of a Chief Digital Officer pivotal for any industry. A CDO must demonstrate agility to respond and adapt quickly to customer demands/needs, and are often faced with making bold decisions.
Wired.com asserts, “The CDO will drive the digital functional excellence from strategy to infrastructure and ensure that we have the right competence and capabilities to support and leverage the business from a digital perspective.”
CDO’s are not only the liaison between customer and product but become key partners with CIOs, CMOs, Sales Officers and CFOs. They communicate the intricacies of market trends, new technology developments and customer behavior to create a digital strategy that is mindful of all these shifting plates, with the end goal to meet revenue objectives.
In today’s hyperactive commerce market, a strong digital strategy is necessary. If done successfully, a CDO can move their company’s business platform to not only meet the demands of the customer, but also revenue goals of the enterprise.
For further reading from our C-Suite buyer persona series:
It’s a new year and everyone is looking for digital trends that will optimize business strategy this year. We trust that things are already in full swing your business initiatives and we want to recap on our favorites brought to you from our friends at Altimeter.
CEO, Charlene Li, thinks, “Agile customization of experiences becomes a priority” in 2016, and we could not agree more.
Industry Analyst, Ed Terpening, acknowledges a rising complexity in the digital ecosystem.
Today’s business world is not static and your digital strategies must address not only volume of data but recency based on the specific role and need of the ‘consumer’ of that data. That is why our FirstRain Business Web Graph continually scans the structure of the living Web and the topics, triggers and business lines continually change over time, evolving and expanding based on system input and customer feedback.
FirstRain is an enterprise leader in providing a competitive analysis of target market analysis that will help optimize your business strategy this year.
Feel free to contact us for a free demo, and show you how actionable insights can empower your digital strategy this year.
This is part of the FirstRain Persona Series.
The C-Suite has a new kid on the block; the Chief Data Officer and they are here to stay. Many had predicted the roles of VPs and Directors of Analytics would rise to the C-Suite, and they certainly have. Forrester reports an increase of 45% in the adoption of a CDO in 2015 and predicts a 16% increase in 2016.
So why is this role on the rise? The far-reaching collection of data in the enterprise has lead to the need for an executive leader that sits within the C-Suite to establish and preserve the infrastructure around the ever-growing volume of data, and leverage it as a weapon for business development and customer success.
In the past, strategists were left guessing what people preferred and imagination ruled over data, but the times of the Don Draper’s are gone. Now, there is customer intelligence software that reveals customers’ inclinations and can accordingly shape impactful insights that strengthen a company’s business strategy and allows them to scale quickly.
Currently, there is an array of customer intelligence tools and social media platforms that track customer likes, dislikes and measure engagement. If you feel like someone is watching you, well, they are! More than ever, business technology has become an expert in capturing human behavior.
A problem many enterprises face is, what to do with all that data. Gartner identifies this as a core issue; “Business and IT executives regularly claim that information is one of their companies’ greatest assets, but they fail to measure or fully leverage its value”.
Companies have become thorough about collecting information, but many have yet to take the extra step of recognizing data as a bargaining chip. Too often, a gold mine of information sits in the cloud or is stored in drives waiting for someone to make use of it and connect the dots, but often it is too late.
Digital strategies evolve at a fast-pace and require real-time attention, to market trends, patterns, and changes and have created a demand for Chief Data Officers. CDOs are responsible for bridging the gap between information management and toward actionable insights. Many companies have adopted the role, but many are being left behind in the data-driving race. It’s not just about collecting data, but rather doing something about it.
CDOs are responsible for promoting data access across a company structure and creating awareness in the value within. Forrester explains, “CDOs typically address one or more of four main functions along the data value chain: data management, data governance, data analytics, and insights delivery.”
Data management and data governance
Chief Data Officer’s are responsible for setting a strong, clear foundation for data governance that will foster competitive digital strategies in the next stages of their company’s growth. CDO’s often partner up with CIOs to implement an infrastructure that facilitates data accessibility. The first step of data collection will ultimately measure the results of future business goals and initiatives and has become a key priority in the role of a CDO.
The accuracy and integrity of customer data reports rest in the hands of CDOs and can become a stepping stone to business development plans, strategies, and marketing campaigns. If the first step of data collection is flawed, future information will have a falling domino effect.
Data analytics and insights
Chief Data Officer’s are not only responsible for the systems and practices in reading data, but also analyzing data, and using analytics to find new revenue streams and growth opportunities. Everyone has a lot of data, but how you use it can revolutionize your business and create better-informed decisions that can grow revenue.
CDO’s must partner with technology business leaders to increase agility and reduce risk but, more importantly, this partnership must be coupled with actionable insights to drive innovation. Research suggests, “As companies shift their focus from collecting data to driving innovation, new business models will emerge in which companies subscribe to insights and business outcomes rather than data and analytics solutions.”
CDO’s are not waiting for market disruptions to react but rather using business technology like FirstRain’s platform to anticipate. FirstRain delivers relevant real-time information coupled with actionable insights and triggers that help mitigate risks and help CDOs help their employees to dive deeper into niche markets and competitors, giving them a 360-degree view of industry analysis and better preparing them for market changes.
CDO’s play a large role in the business optimization strategy. Not only does data allow a business to reach a niche audience and engage with customers, but it can propel product development teams to create a better platform, website, product and app for a target audience.
Depending on the phase an enterprise is at, the role of a CDO will foster different priorities. For a younger company, the focus might rest around growth and finding a niche customer market, producing aggressive marketing strategy and organic promotion. For a global brand, the focus might rest around customer satisfaction and engagement. But regardless of the stage an enterprise is at, one thing remains imperative; responding to analytics and reports demands the attention of a Chief Data Officer. Welcome to the club!
For further reading on C-Suite persona:
This is part of the FirstRain Persona Series.
Many may not recognize the title, “Chief Strategy Officer,” as part of the C-Suite, as the role has recently become popular, but will recognize a CSO’s duties. People have come to know the CSO as the “enforcer”, or a “mini-CEO” because of their main focus: to implement the vision of the CEO and company.
No one likes to be the “tough guy”, but many companies have already recognized a need for a Chief Strategy Officer such as Deloitte, IBM, Citrix, Intuit, Cloudera, Oracle and Cisco. CSO’s are usually recruited from veteran roles in management where they have a proven track record of successfully leading teams. Often their titles are coupled with CTO, Head of Corporate Development, and VP of Strategic Alliances.
Today, the CSO works closely with the CEO and bears the challenge of rapidly implementing a strategy that will drive a company to meet end goals and objectives. They understand the importance of being able to influence and mentor people to meet industry demands.
So what does the chief strategy officer do? Some CSO’s act more like a strategist while others are “doers”, and others, facilitators, but regardless of their implementation style, they must effectively oversee the entire company’s strategic plan.
A top priority for a CSO is bringing cohesiveness across the company and making sure that everyone is on board with the company’s strategic goals. Not everyone is apt for change, but working together is necessary to effectively move a company forward. A lot of a CSO’s time is spent working closely with upper management to communicate clearly the next stages a company must make. Their message must be clear-cut and definitive to create an immediate response from these teams.
Setting concrete plans, and goals are necessary to meet long-term visions. With a dynamic list of priorities, a CSO must be mindful of change. In today’s hyperactive digital business world, strategies must account for market changes. Successful CSO’s are not reacting to market trends and changes, they are preparing for them.
Acting pre-emptively to threats, competitors and all the other bumps on the road, will be key to the success of the office of the CSO. Today’s CSO must leverage business intelligence tools that are responsive to market trends and changes and, therefore, able to focus on facilitating strategy as the company’s “Strategy Orchestrator”.
For example in the financial industry, a CSO might be responsible for mitigating risk and growth opportunities. They must be aware of mergers and acquisitions, competitors, global economic changes and especially disrupting technologies in FinTech. This can be overwhelming and can deter a CSO away from enabling a strategic plan. Enterprise business intelligence platforms are fulfilling the need of identifying risk within markets. Companies like FirstRain identify market trends and provide their users with actionable insights to better prepare for market changes, competitors and opportunities.
In Industrial Manufacturing, for example, a CEO’s plan might require rapid growth to stay afloat, and this will require a Chief Strategy Officer to work closely with Sales and Marketing to implement a strategy that will require sales teams to work more effectively. For a sales team to drive results, they must be supplied with technology that prioritizes clients and presents actionable insights for new opportunities that help fulfill the corporate strategy. CRM intelligence software helps prioritize tasks that meet short-term goals, mid-term goals, and successfully steers a company to growth.
Regardless of the industry, a Chief Strategy Officer plays a key role as a leader who understands the mechanics of getting things done. The role often demands the CSO to drive a company through market change, growth, or disruptions, but at end of the day, the CSO must be influential in facilitating change and bringing a vision to live.
To read additional posts on FirstRain buyer Personas:
Guest post by: Jan Willis, Calibra.
Customer success stories are an important and necessary sales tool. Just like having references for any job interview, they aren’t going to make the sale but without good ones, it may cause a delay in the sales process. Yet, customer success stories are often cookie cutter in style and not engaging. Even worse, you may struggle to get your customers to approve them.
I’ve been working with companies on success stories across industries – from semiconductors to software development tools to software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. I have experienced the frustration of writing a customer story only to have the customer not approve it, or worse, approve it and then pull it after its been published. There will be many customers who won’t share their brand value with you for fear of diluting it. There will be others that you simply don’t have the relationship with to “override” the policy of not doing them. But there will be customers where you do have the product and people relationships that gain you the necessary approvals. Make the most of these customers and seize the moment as your champion might move on. Most of all, tell a great story for your company and their customer.
Here are three tips from my recent experiences that I hope will help you tell a great customer story. Let the story begin!
Tell the story in your customer’s own words
Don’t fall into the trap of marketing speak! It’s easier to just write the problem, solution and benefits using all the company’s great messaging, but it’s dry and boring. Tell the story as if it were unfolding as you read it. And to do that you need to interview the key people and collect as many usable quotes as possible. Don’t forget to ask for their picture to make it even more engaging and realistic. I like what I see for pulling all three of these elements together in the customer case studies by RelateIQ, a Palo Alto, California-based start-up that is quickly becoming the go-to relationship intelligence solution for professionals seeking to build better relationships and make smarter decisions.
Use surveys to help gather facts and interesting user commentary
Not another survey! I know we’re asked to respond to surveys almost daily now. But companies who are SaaS providers are one of the best examples of where knowing if customers are successful is not just nice to have – it’s crucial to achieving very high renewal rates, a key metric for a SaaS company. These surveys are usually quite effective as they are often run internally by the customer to validate the ROI. Provided there are open ended questions, this can be a rich source of additional commentary from the users by incorporating direct quotes that can help bring authenticity to the success story and have it sound less like marketing speak. I have seen this work for myself while working on case studies such as Nuance Communications for FirstRain, a pioneer and leader in personal business analytics solutions for the enterprise.
If you hit the wall on permission, try new approaches
Beware of the marketing police! I always find it a bit awkward to coach people on how to get through the marketing controls on the use of their brand since I used to enforce them myself. The truth is every decision is a business decision and with the right case made by the right person, there are exceptions. There are many companies who have business reasons to want to work with their suppliers on telling their story. The keys are having senior relationships between the companies and finding the win-win scenario. Should you still hit the wall on permission, there’s a new approach that I really like if you have 50-100 customers to work with. Founded in 2007 and based in Emeryville, California, TechValidate solves the problem of extracting quantifiable operational and financial metrics from your customer base, and then instantly turning that data into usable, third party verified marketing materials.
Author:
Jan Willis founded Calibra in 2007 after holding senior marketing positions at Cadence Design Systems, Simplex Solutions, Synopsys, and HP and completing an MBA at Stanford University. Calibra is a B2B business consulting firm specializing in helping high-tech companies enhance their brand and accelerate the market adoption of their products. Its consulting practice includes whole product strategy, company and technology branding, strategic options analysis, industry alliances, and interim leadership.
The infinite stream of information in the 21st century world has created many new possibilities for companies. Analytics that track consumers across Web pages, tweets, blogs and other content posted every minute create a wealth of resources for sales reps and marketers who need to develop a greater understanding of their customers’ movements and industries. However, all this information can be overwhelming and distracting. There’s simply too much of it to deal with. To many executives, Big Data is large and intimidating. However, if you find a way to cut through the noise, you can reduce the flood to a more manageable trickle. To do this you need the right infrastructure, tools and attitude.
Executives Want More Information For the most part, executives are on board with using data, even if they don’t know how to approach it. A CSO Insights survey cited by Business News Daily found 89 percent of executives believe that sales reps missed out on sales opportunities because they weren’t up to date on what was going on with customers and prospects. In addition, the survey found that salespeople often need to look at as many as 15 different sources to find usable information about prospects. The time spent looking through the CRM, social media accounts and doing Google searches all adds up. And after you’ve finished looking through all these sources, your data may not be organized.
Not All Data is the Right Data According to a recent article from Forbes, many businesses hear about big data analytics and try to jump on board without really thinking it through. As the magazine explains, you need to consider carefully which data will help you achieve your goals and what will just add more noise. You need the right tools to navigate the flood, otherwise it will remain unmanageable. For example, if your goal is to use market intelligence to gain a better understanding of your customer’s industry, you need to find a way to hone in on the details that matter.
How Companies Can Gain From the Right Intelligence When businesses have access to a platform that streamlines the Niagara-level flood of data into a navigable canal, sales reps and marketers suddenly have insight that can help improve revenue productivity. Your sales reps can plug into the client’s world and see trigger events they can use to create more targeted sales pitches. They can see events on the horizon that will change the market, like the introduction of new products, activity of competitors, or changing management. They will have the ability to answer questions their potential clients haven’t figured out how to ask yet. In short, while big data may seem unwieldy, you can harness it to improve sales productivity.
Getting Customer Intelligence in the C-Suite Businesses tend to perform better when they have high-level executives dedicated to successfully implementing big data initiatives. According to Mckinsey, different companies need to assess how management can best approach introducing analytics into the business sphere. Often, chief marketing officers may take the reigns on these initiatives. On the other hand, depending on the individual needs of your company, it could be an idea to create a whole new role to manage the implementation of customer intelligence and make sure it is successful from upper management down to the sales teams that use the knowledge to craft better pitches.
By choosing the right solution, your company can figure out how to use Big Data successfully to make a difference in your sales and marketing strategies.
