by Bob Grant

Facing poor sales in September, 2010 The Gap decided to make a logo change, as if an updated logo was going to turnaround slumping sales. The new logo immediately received negative reaction from customers, publications and independent bloggers. The Gap quickly reverted back to their old logo.

According to the April 8, issue of the NY Times, in March with Gap’s North American sales of same store sales down 9% The Gap recently announced a reassessment of its brand. According to John Seifert of Olgivy, the Gap, “sort of lost its story and lost its focus on what made it different and special.” Seth Farman, Gap’s chief global marketing officer, is reported to have said, the Gap “needs to set a clear point of view for the brand.”

It was at first surprising that a large corporation like the Gap would think that a logo change would change the brand of the company. Logos, being a visible representation of a company, are often thought of as the company brand. The very definition of a brand goes back to the wild west days when cattle ranchers “branded” their cattle so one ranch’s cattle could be differentiated from another ranch. Today, well established logos do connect us immediately to the company, think Nike, IBM, and Apple. However, the logo is just a recognizable reminder of the company it represents, but the true brand of a company is what the company itself represents in the minds of it customers, potential customers, and its employees.

Developing one’s brand is not an easy process. A company needs to evaluate who they are as a company and who they want to be as a company. It’s important to ask stakeholders and employees inside the company about their perceptions of the company. It is equally important to uncover what customers and potential customers think about the company and what the company is promising to them. Once the research is complete, how do you synthesize that research into brand messaging and positioning statements that will resonate with audiences inside the company and outside the company. Then comes the awesome task of turning that brand into reality by altering the way the company does business and getting everyone inside the company on board to back up the company’s new brand.

The Gap is on the right track and it will be interesting for us brand strategist and marketers to see how they will improve their brand and increase their sales.

As reported in the New York Times, Google announcement that it is changing its algorithms to reduce ranking of what it calls low quality sites, meaning sites with little original content or content built solely from third party sites like Demand Media. Google said that it will raise the rankings of higher quality web sites while reducing the rankings of lower quality sites.
Google makes about 500 changes a year to its algorithms and most of them are minor. However, according to Armit Singhal, a Google Fellow, who worked on this recent change, announced in an interview that users were likely to quickly notice this one. If we believe Google, this change is in the best of interest of consumers who rely on Google for reliable and original information when they go “Googling”.
There are hundreds of companies whose business model revolves around navigating Google’s algorithms and helping their customers increase their searchable rank among Google’s pages. The Times article reports that Demand Media, for example, uses software to track what people are searching for on Google and other sites, generates headlines based on those searches and pays small amounts to freelancers to write the articles. Demand Media is reported to be worth $1.9 Billion.
While this change may have some impact on Demand Media and, other companies that seek to grow their businesses around Google, what impact, if any, does it have on business-to-business companies and their web sites?
If we trust that Google, yahoo, Bing and other search engines’ goal is to provide relevant content for consumers, then those of us in marketing and branding need not be concerned about this latest Google change. We have always recommended to our b2b and industrial clients, that the best way to gain good search engine results is to have excellent content on their web sites.
If you are an expert in spring manufacturing, you serve your customer best by providing detailed information on the types of springs that you offer, the sizes, the materials, the applications for these springs, and a lot more. With well thought out and written content you offer a beneficial service to your customers and those potential customers who need information on springs.
Whether or not you make springs, gaskets, bearings, or any other product, we need to depend on major search engines like Google and Yahoo to direct users looking for quality information. It’s to Google’s credit that they make it easier for this to happen.

Bob Grant, Grant Marketing

www.grantmarketing.com
For the full article on Google in the NT Times go to:
New York Times – Google

Wael Ghonim the Google marketing executive who became one of the leaders of the youth movement to unseat Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, invoked the importance of brand, according to a recent article in the New York Times.

Mr. Ghonim had little experience in politics but an intense dislike for the abusive Egyptian police, the mainstay of the government’s power. He offered his business savvy to the cause. “I worked in marketing, and I knew that if you build a brand you can get people to trust the brand,” he said.

The result was a Facebook group Mr. Ghonim set up: We Are All Khalid Said, after a young Egyptian who was beaten to death by police. Mr. Ghonim — unknown to the public, but working closely with Mr. Maher of the April 6 Youth Movement and a contact from Mr. ElBaradei’s group — said that he used Mr. Said’s killing to educate Egyptians about democracy movements.

If a strong brand communicated through social media can topple a government, just think what it could do for growing a business.

Ready or not B2B marketers, including industrial marketers, will need to be ready to embrace, real-time marketing, social media, blogging, and online PR sooner rather than later. Watch just the first 3 minutes of this video presentation by David Meerman Scott and you will get a quick idea of what real-time marketing is all about.

Text Test

David Meerman Scott keynote at BMA 2009 national conference from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.

by Bob Grant

Bob Grant

A recent white paper by Frost and Sullivan distributed through GlobalSpec  addresses how and why the marketing landscape has been shifting from traditional methods of marketing to online marketing methods, and  the process buyers and engineers currently  use to locate suppliers and make purchasing decisions.

While I agree with the paper’s premise that looking for products and vendors online has lagged behind how consumers use the Internet to make purchasing decisions and purchases, the mental process of industrial buying has not changed for decades. The buyer or specifying engineer, when determining that he or she has a need for a product, would begin a search for the right product and company. For years most manufacturing companies invested in sales people, manufacturer reps, trade shows, and advertising, to generate sales. However, once industrial buyers recognized a need, the buyer sought out the seller. This is the selling premise that Thomas Register, now Thomasnet, was built on since 1905. That is 115 years ago. At one point, Thomas Register had more than 20,000 manufacturers marketing this way. So, what has changed is not so much the process, but the medium.

Buyers can now search more easily for manufactured products on Google, Yahoo, Bing, or more vertical industrial sites like Thomasnet and GlobalSpec. Thousands of manufacturers are aware of the importance of the Internet to the buying process. What separates the successful from the not so successful manufacturing marketer is the content of the website and the visibility on the Internet.  Industrial buyers need information and they want to be able to retrieve that information quickly and efficiently. Companies with websites that grab attention and provide resources and content to solve the buyer’s needs are more likely to get the order.

The next advance in industrial marketing will be social media. Like the Internet, consumers are leading the way in social media, and it is almost a requirement that online and offline merchandisers must provide a platform and community for consumers to review, compare, and comment on products. I think we will see a growth of online social media networks for industrial and b2b buyers over the next several years.

According to a recent Business.com study,

• B2B marketers most often turn to social media for Web site traffic (77%) lead generation (67%) and improved search results (57%)
• B2B marketers using specific metrics are seeing positive impact in the form of search optimization
• Significant differences exist seen a positive impact in their social-to-search usage between those who have seen a positive impact in their social media efforts on search (The Best) and those who are not measuring, (The Rest).
• The Best use social media techniques to enhance their paid search marketing efforts 67% more often than The Rest
• 74% of marketers in The Best have seen an increase in Web site traffic since the inception of their social media program

The Current Social Media Landscape

Business.com’s  study of more than 450 B2B marketers found the majority of respondents use at least one social media channel for business, with B2B marketers, on average, using 4.5 social media resources.  More than half of B2B marketers favor the use of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, webinars and company blogs as social media channels.

Although the majority of marketers currently devote 10% or less of their online marketing budget to social media, many are looking to increase overall social media efforts in the coming year. This echoes a recent Forrester Research study that shows social media spend to reach more than $3 Billion by 2014.

B2B marketers need to continue to experiment with social media if for no other reason that it may have a positive effect on their search engine optimization. While the debate continues on whether or not social media should be part of a B2B marketer’s interactive marketing plan, there is no debate on the desire for better search engine optimization results.

For some positive b2b social media results, See Facebook: The latest b-o-b frontier? At BtoB magazine.

http://www.btobonline.com/article/20101011/FREE/101009913/facebook-the-latest-b-to-b-frontier

Along with 100,000 plus visitors to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta I started out from our hotel at 5:30AM to be sure to watch hundreds of balloon enthusiasts ready their hot air balloons for launch. The hot air balloons came in all shapes and sizes and included the shape of a Pepsi can, a cow representing the Dairy Association, as well as a variety of cartoon characters and the head of Darth Vader from Star Wars. It was a spectacular visual site to see these colorful monster balloons blown up and ascend into the early morning sky.

I very much enjoyed the networking breakfast in Boston last week hosted by B2B Magazine. The featured speakers were great. I particularly liked Frank Days of Novell’s presentation on agile marketing (www.agilemarketing.com) which is consistent with our advice to our clients that in addition to an annual marketing plan, we need to be focused on the tactical marketing strategies within a 2-3 month framework. With today’s web analytics you can launch a campaign, analyze the results, and respond with a follow up or edited campaign.

I also liked Elizabeth Williams of Rogers Communications presentation. Rogers new marketing focus is on small businesses. They actually created a website dedicated to small businesses (http://www.celebratesmallbusiness.ca/)  From their research they learned that while small businesses are experts in their own field, when sourcing partners or vendors in services where they are not experts, they search for companies that are knowledgeable in that field and that can make their jobs easier.

When it comes to B2B marketing, there is a great deal of marketing communication clutter for small businesses to deal with. We at Grant Marketing try to make it easy for a company to navigate through the clutter and make sound, creditable, and traceable marketing decisions.

According to a recent survey of senior marketing executives, 2010 CMO Survey, conducted by the Fugua School of Business at Duke University and the American Marketing Association, marketing budgets are expected to grow by 9.2% over the next year. Not surprisingly budgets for Internet marketing are expected to rise an average of 13.6% followed by brand building at 8.3% and CRM spending at 8.3%.  The survey notes that social media spending is expected to grow from 9.9% of total marketing budgets to 17.7% over the next five years.

As a brand consultant I am pleased to see the uptick on brand building. Since Internet marketing bandwidth and marketing opportunities are vast it will be important for companies to focus on their brand differentiation. Not only does a company need to deliver a strong message in its marketplace, the company also needs to be certain that the brand is backed up by company employees and executives who need to deliver on that brand promise.

The CMO survey noted that while CMO’s were optimistic about their own companies, they were less optimistic about the US economy. With worries about the economy, strong brands supported by strong brand advocates within the company will be even more important to compete in a shrinking economy.

Grant Marketing announces new survey from industrial marketers

Grant Marketing of Boston announces the results of their 2010 Industrial Marketing survey. Grant Marketing conducted a survey of industrial companies and compared it with other surveys from Global Spec and Thomasnet to get a handle on industrial marketing and what smart marketers need to do next.

According to Bob Grant, President of Grant Marketing, “With manufacturing companies experiencing the worst recession in years, we wanted to get a snapshot of how industrial marketers were promoting their products and services for the remainder of 2010. We were surprised to discover that 93.1% of respondents were planning to introduce new or improved products this year.”

According to the Grant Marketing survey industrial marketers will promote new products and services through email marketing, websites, and press releases. Survey respondent, Brian Hakeem, Marketing Manager for Shepherd Casters, confirms, “We plan to introduce 6 new products by August for a total of 8-12 by the end of the year. Among other tactics, we use e-mail blasts to announce new products to our customers, distributors, and opt-in purchased email lists.”

Industrial companies are using an integrated marketing approach which consists of email marketing, catalogs & brochures, trade shows, press releases, search engine optimization (SEO), trade publications, and industrial websites like Thomasnet and Global Spec. Email marketing appears to be a very strong tactic for reaching buyers and engineers. Grant Marketing’s findings are supported by GlobalSpec’s research that shows 60% of industrial engineers receive three or more e-newsletters a week and 55% of this audience reads e-newsletters daily or several times a week. E-newsletters provide a means to keep the industrial marketers company and products visible even when customers and prospects are not ready to buy or specify.

Grant Marketing, located in Newton, MA specializes in B2B marketing communications. Grant helps industrial and manufacturing companies with brand development, integrated marketing strategies, marketing plans, interactive marketing, website design, and web analytics.

For more information on the Grant Marketing Survey go to Industrial Survey. For more information on Grant Marketing go to www.GrantMarketing.com .