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Marketing Profs Daily Fix

• Leaders Pedal Forward, But Also Look Back 9 July, 2010, 1:36 am
  A friend took me biking this week. He wanted to show me some hilly trails. We met at an agreed-upon spot and started our ride. He led the way. As I followed, I was able to keep up for a while, but then I began to fall behind. Whoosh, these hills were tough. As we went downhill, he was able to speed even further ahead. If he looked back, he would have seen me falling behind. But, he just kept pedaling forward. A second set of hills, and before I knew it, he was so far ahead he was completely out of view. This guy was being a terrible leader. What good is leading if you don’t have a follower? At this point, he wasn’t a leader at all … but a lone ranger. I rode another quarter mile, but there was no sign of him. Frustrated, I turned around to head home. It was hot, and I decided to get ice cream. In the middle of all this, I saw a business lesson. What took place on the bike trail, takes place in the office. You’ve got someone with vision, direction, and the desire to lead. They recruit followers, but forget to communicate important details, such as the big picture, how long the road is ahead … and where the end point is. As a follower, lack of information is frustrating and demotivating. Great leadership not only requires vision and direction to move forward, but also the ability to look back. Drive forward confidently, but also “lead.” And provide your followers the ability to follow.
• Reputation Management Is Not Needed … Until It’s Needed 9 July, 2010, 1:31 am
  Poet Robert Burns is widely credited with the phrase, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” Relating this phrase in a business context, it stands to reason no matter how much a company orchestrates activities and executes its battle plans—high-impact mistakes happen. However, in an age of over-optimization, and marketing and communications cost-cutting, “soft stuff” such as brand management, press relations, crisis communications and the like are often shelved or discarded in favor of “just-in-time” strategies. Indeed, reputation management isn’t needed … until it’s needed. In an article from “The Observer,” John Naughton wonders in amazement at how society ever managed without the Internet. Naughton ponders a world without Google, Skype, instant messaging, and online bank accounts. And while the Internet has created boom for most of us, the rise of social media hasn’t been sweet ambrosia for all companies. In fact, with social media and Internet technologies, now company decisions and actions are mostly public, including those of front-line employees. Now, actions that happened last week, last night, or 10 minutes ago can be broadcast across the globe in seconds, creating very dangerous challenges for company branding and reputation efforts. In the Financial Times article “Perils of a Tarnished Brand,” authors Morgen Witzel and Ravi Mattu notice that even the most scripted and orchestrated product launches can go haywire. And even when “best-intented” marketing plans are well-executed, companies can be exposed to the ramifications of their daily operational and strategic decisions (e.g., Google in China and BP). “What affects reputations, in turn affects brands,” the authors point out. Every employee is a brand ambassador, and brand management is no longer simply the purview of marketing managers. Even the best branding intentions can go awry when actions don’t back up corporate speak, say Witzel and Mattu. Of larger concern however, is marketing cost-cutting trends in the name of efficiency that potentially leave brands and reputations exposed. Robert Mabro, Honorary President of Oxford’s Institute for Energy, describes this problem in a letter to the Financial Times. He writes, “(Companies) no longer want to employ specialists in soft matters, such as political issues and the like. When an accident occurs, they find themselves hopelessly unprepared. This of course (ends up) destroying shareholder value!” Moreover, economist John Kay sums up the problem quite succinctly, “Yesterday’s cost-savings are so often today’s corporate crisis.” One potential solution is for companies to invest more in “softer matters” like brand, reputation, crisis and risk management. Undoubtedly, some of these considerations are tough to justify in an age of narrow return on investment marketing calculations such as cost per lead. However, Internet and social media technologies that transmit events, news and crisis accounts—at the speed of light—aren’t going away. To succeed in such an environment, companies must invest in the softer functions mentioned above even when “payback” doesn’t appear imminent. It’s difficult to forecast all types of crises that could occur. A much better plan is preparedness. Is your company up for the challenge? Related: Financial Times “It Pays to Expect the Unexpected“
• Marketers Are Publishers Now. So What Do We Call Marketing? 7 July, 2010, 11:24 pm
  We need a name!  I have heard “Brand Journalism.” I have heard “Custom Media.” And I have heard “Content Marketing.” Whether it’s B2B or B2C, Lead Generation or Brand Awareness, tactics that use content to engage prospects and customers is nothing new. Most of us are not old enough to remember when P&G started “soap operas.”  Marketers were television producers.  In the age of online marketing, publishing websites focused all marketers on the practice of publishing.  The rise of blogs took this to another level because everyone could easily become a published author. This year, MarketingProfs along with Junta42 will soon publish a benchmark study of B2B marketers’ use of content to drive revenue. Plus, Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, will have a book published by John Wiley titled Content Rules, which focuses on how to create great content.  Some companies like Radian6 have started to hire Content Marketing Managers. Marketing with great content works, but to recognize it as a valued profession, we need to name it.  I vote for calling it all “Content Marketing.” What do you say?
• What Marketing & Sales Can Learn From Seinfeld 6 July, 2010, 9:14 am
  All of us have had the moment when we say to ourselves, “I am living a Seinfeld episode.”  No matter if we are stuck waiting for a table in a restaurant, trying to rent a car or dealing with friends or family. At one point and time, we’ve all been there.  This Seinfeld experience extends not just into our personal lives, but also professional lives and, believe it or not, there are some lessons we can take from it. Take the scene from the fourth season where Jerry and George are discussing how popular salsa is becoming as a condiment.  George begins to opine about how difficult it must be for a person with an accent to order seltzer,  “They order seltzer, but get salsa.”  While this dialogue not only represents the nothingness of the show, it does paint a picture of what occurs in many B2B organizations today between marketing and sales in that the two groups are using different words, especially when it comes to managing leads. Too often sales and marketing organizations struggle to clearly articulate and agree on the definition of a lead.  In essence, sales is asking marketing for seltzer and marketing is delivering salsa.  This is an exercise in frustration and not only widens the marketing and sales alignment gap, but also is a waste of marketing dollars as leads that are produced go largely ignored. A great place for organizations to begin is for marketing and sales to develop a set of definitions on each stage of the buyers journey.  This begins with defining a response all the way through to a customer.  To be more precise, organizations should have a mutual understanding of the following: Response Valid Response Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) Sales Accepted Lead (SAL) Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) Closed Deal Customer By mutually defining these terms, marketing and sales will align around a common language, thus making communication between the two more fluid.  This is certainly not where the work stops, but it is a great starting point and foundation from which to build. If sales and marketing are frustrated by lack of results, there is a good chance your saying two different things.  While it makes for good humor on television, it can be the cause for disaster in B2B organizations.
• 5 Not-So-Obvious Ways to Inspire ‘Web Celebs’ to Back Your Brand 5 July, 2010, 8:47 am
  This post is a guest post by Sam Rosen, CEO of ThoughtLead. On Tuesday, July 6, my company is putting on “the shortest marketing conference ever.” It’s called the Influencer Project, and it features new media luminaries like MarketingProfs’ own Ann Handley, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Gary Vaynerchuk, John Jantsch, Anne Holland, David Meerman Scott, Brian Clark, and many others—60 in total. Inquiring minds have wanted to know how we got so many “influencers” on board. Well, it has something to do with the fact that each only has 60 seconds to speak. Let me explain. As my team and I thought through what made our pitch “work,” and why so many “A-listers” agreed to participate, we came up with five not-so-obvious principles that you can start putting into practice immediately. Without any further ado, here they are: 1. Create a “meme.” What’s a meme? In its simplest form, a meme is simply an idea that can spread from person to person. Whereas “genes” are passed on at the biological level, “memes” propagate on the cultural level. Okay—enough jargon. What does that actually mean? I Can Has Cheezburger is a meme. Lady Gaga is a meme. Sh*t My Dad Says is a meme. “A virtual marketing conference” is not a meme. “The shortest marketing conference ever” is. So “15 hour-long webinars“ is not a meme, but “60 talks in 60 minutes” is. That’s not to say that general marketing conferences aren’t great, important, and incredibly valuable. But they’re not necessarily memes. A meme takes a simple convention (marketing conferences; teen pop stars; sage advice) and turns it on its head (“shortest marketing conference ever”; the most outrageous and over-the-top teen pop star in history; ridiculous, profane, and hilarious sage advice) in a way that’s surprising, eye-catching, and even remarkable (“60 in-demand leaders speaking for 60 seconds each”; theatrics and imagery that’s uniquely, err, creative and boundary-pushing; hilarity delivered in 140 characters). So: are you creating a meme, or more of the same? 2. Offer disarmingly low barriers to entry (and, ideally, make it fun). If you think you have a meme that will excite people—all celebrities are human, and get excited by the exact same things we do, after all—but it requires tremendous effort (and you don’t have tremendous money to pay for their time, or a massive social cause to champion), then, sir or madam, good luck. If I had asked each speaker to talk for one hour about [insert generalized topic here], I would have surely gotten turned down by many, if not most, of the speakers. But all I asked for was 60 seconds. That’s not just disarmingly simple to cognize—it also presents a fun and intriguing challenge. So: how big are your barriers to entry? Are the “asks” you’re making eye-rolling, or thrilling? 3. Construct a collective ethos. 60 speakers is a project. It’s not “me” speaking at “some thing”—it’s all of us doing something together. TED represents 1,000 leaders coming together to explore the edge of what’s next—and millions of people watching the videos afterward. It unites people, and it’s about our future. None of us, deep down inside, wants to be a lone ranger. Celebrities and thought leaders have strong individual presences—but who, honestly, wants to walk the path alone? When you build a forum for many people to share ideas that matter, you release an energy that’s unparalleled. MarketingProfs does this beautifully: everyone is blogging, chatting, and working together—not alone. So: is the meme you’re creating making influencers feel part of something, or all on their own? 4. Make your language repeatable and surprising, but meaningful. It’s really, really easy to come up with a generalized description of virtually anything. But that won’t light people up. We like things we can repeat, that roll off our tongues with ease. “60 speakers in 60 minutes.” “60-in-60.” In this case, I used numerical repetition to make the language “stick.” Now, and here’s the rub, there’s also significance behind the numbers: they represent the fact that many leading thinkers and doers—a surprising 60—will all be sharing something remarkable in 60 seconds each. “Purple Cow” is both surprising and repeatable—but it represents an idea that can transform your business. “The Art of the Start” also has an incredibly rhythmic quality, but it’s coming from one of the most respected startup advisers in the country. So: is your language repeatable, surprising, and meaningful—or are you either too bland or going for shock value without offering meaning? 5. Write the right letter. There’s an interesting phenomenon that can occur when we reach out to the influencers: we either err on the side of long-winded, involved, overly deferential (two-page letters describing our event in painstaking detail and why it would be our deepest honor to have the person involved), or communicating beyond our pay grade (“Hey bro, you down to do an interview tomorrow?” Unless, of course, it is your brother.). What we’re shooting for is the line right down the middle. That means writing brief and collegial emails (none of ours were longer than 12 sentences), but still informative (none were less than 6 sentences, and all included the most important details). So: are you writing friendly, informative, and succinct invitations—or are you erring on either too stiff and long-winded or too short and “buddy buddy”? There you have it: 5 principles that can get the web celebs on board and increase your brand visibility online. Spark any ideas for your own brand? —————————————— Sam Rosen is the CEO of ThoughtLead in Lenox, Massachusetts, organizer of the Influencer Project.
• World Cup 2010: A Social Media Gooooooal! 10 June, 2010, 9:31 pm
  The world’s most widely viewed sporting event, FIFA World Cup 2010, begins today. Every four years since 1930 (with the exception of 1942 and 1946), soccer teams have fought, kicked, run, defended, and left everything on the field in fierce matches in the world’s spotlight. This year, 32 teams battle in South Africa. And for the first time ever, the World Cup is playing in the digital age. During the last World Cup, social media was barely kicking: Twitter hit the field on July 2006; Facebook wasn’t public until September 2006. In 2010,  it’s a whole new World Cup. The World Is Watching From June 11 to July 11, hundreds of millions of soccer  fans around the world will be glued to their TV and computer screens to watch the FIFA World Cup. And unlike the last World Cup,  fans who couldn’t afford to jet to the hosting country are no longer limited to screaming, jeering, and cheering just in sports bars or their living rooms. Thanks to Twitter (@FIFAcom) and Facebook, fans can have their shouts and whistles heard around the world. How important is social media to World Cup 2010? FIFA president Joseph S. Blatter (@seppblatter) says, “…  social media websites will play an important role in connecting everyone who cares about the game of football. I’m very excited to be sharing my own personal experience of the 2010 FIFA World Cup with football fans from all over the world.” And Twitter employee Robin Sloan says, “… The World Cup will eclipse everything we have seen so far on Twitter, including the U.S. election, the Oscars, or the Super Bowl simply because it is so international.” He’s not exaggerating. Fans everywhere are putting on their country’s jerseys and cheering on their teams in the world’s  most anticipated sporting event at: Facebook’s official group for worldwide fans of World Cup 2010 @fifacom on Twitter (official news from FIFA) their country’s soccer team Twitter feed tweetbeat Get in the Game With such a tremendous audience, consider taking advantage of the soccer love and fandom by putting a touch of soccer (or “football” if you speak English anywhere outside the United States)  on your business, tweets or blog posts. Ask yourself: Are there ways that your business can join in this worldwide event? Do  you have a product or idea to share with soccer enthusiasts around the world? Can you share about your country’s team on the corporate blog or Twitter account? Is there someone at your company who is a soccer enthusiast and can tweet, blog or share about World Cup 2010? Today begins a month-long experience of breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping, and dreaming soccer for World Cup 2010 fans. Don’t be late to the game. And feel free to leave a comment or just share who you’re rooting for. I’d love to hear from you!
• Balance Your Personal and Corporate Branding 10 June, 2010, 7:59 am
  There seems to be a new emphasis on personal branding, especially as it pertains to achieving a balance with the corporate brand. If you work for a company, should you focus on personal branding or keep the corporate brand at the forefront? LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY I worked for a small company where I was given the task of carrying out social media and other online marketing initiatives. I had already built something of a personal brand, thanks in part to my books and long-term engagement in both the blog and social media spheres. While I maintained the brand’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as blogged on the company website, in an attempt to leverage the social capital I had built, I made references to the company from my personal Twitter account and blog. I also made repeated efforts to get other members of the company more engaged in social media, the rationale being that if several of us were tweeting, blogging, posting on Facebook, etc., over time it would help to strengthen the corporate brand within those circles. However, I was never able to successfully get the company to make that transition. That’s not to fault the company mind you. It testified to the fact everyone already had a job to do—and tweeting wasn’t part of the job description. The end result was that my personal brand continued to rise, but at the expense of the company itself. STRIKE A DELICATE BALANCE Dan Schawbel, who one could argue knows more about personal branding that just about anybody, had this to say in a recent Bloomberg Businessweek post: “If you’re an employee, start considering what brand you need to build and why. By focusing entirely on your personal brand, you become unemployable. No company wants a selfish worker who isn’t concerned with the business’s results. On the other hand, if you concentrate solely on your company’s brand, you make yourself vulnerable: If the company dies, you die with it.” My motive was not to be selfish in nature, but the end result was that it made more sense for me to step away from the company and continue leveraging my personal brand rather than stay in the fold. And that’s what I did. What Schawbel is suggesting is that a balance be struck, a balance that can often be delicate and tenuous. It takes diligent effort on both the part of the employee and company to make it work in a way that benefits both. GUIDELINES FOR EMPLOYERS I think the onus for ensuring that employees maintain a healthy balance lies with the company. Here are some guidelines companies should adhere to: 1. Have an employee social media engagement policy in place.  This is not merely to prevent employees from giving away proprietary information or saying something that would embarrass or misrepresent the brand. It’s also for the purpose of ensuring the personal brand does not override the corporate. 2. Don’t make social media engagement the job of one person. I’ve come to believe that social media is more a function and less a role. That means the burden gets shouldered by more than one person who carries a special designation as social media director. That’s not to suggest you shouldn’t have someone serving that role. It is to recognize their job is more internal than external. Scott Monty, Ford Motor Company’s head of social media, will tell you his job is as much about serving as a catalyst for creating a more transparent, socially responsive organization as it is tweeting or blogging on Ford’s behalf. To cite his blog, “[Scott] is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.” 3. Encourage employee participation within social media. For example,take  Microsoft, who has thousands of employees who blog, tweet, and engage in other forms of social networking on behalf of the company, often informally, but always with the company’s blessing. 4. Provide media channels that foster employee engagement.  Zappos has its own Twitter aggregation channel. Microsoft has sites that aggregate employee posts. Any number of companies have blogs where multiple employees post on a regular basis. 5. Tie the person together with the brand. Inside social media circles, people relate to other people better than to brands. In that case, follow Dell’s example and tie the person to the brand. Most Daily Fix readers follow (or at least know of) Richard Binhammer, famously known as richardatdell on Twitter. To me, that’s a perfect way to keep the personal and corporate brand in check. (I know I’m citing some of the most well-known examples, but don’t allow their popularity diminish the value of the principles being taught.) GUIDELINES FOR EMPLOYEES 1. Respect the brand. Don’t use company time to promote your personal brand. Remember that you are receiving a paycheck. Work for it. If there are social media engagement guidelines in place, respect those as well. 2. Make every effort to promote the company. Whenever possible, make references to the company, it’s products and services, and do so in a manner that will reflect well on you and your company. I’m not suggesting you become a company shill. Be genuinely enthusiastic. If you love your work and the company you work for, that shouldn’t be difficult. Remember the adage: If you don’t have anything good to say, then say nothing at all. It really comes down to a matter of plain common sense. 3. Encourage other employees to do the same. If you find yourself in the unenviable position of being the sole voice of the company within social media, start a campaign to get others involved. 4. Recognize when you get “too big for your britches.” Invariably, there will be those whose personal brand takes precedence over the corporate. In those cases, it may be best for that person to do what I did and move on. Perhaps a healthier tack is to recognize the person’s achievement, celebrate it, and use the person as a spokesperson or evangelist, not dissimilar to what Microsoft did with Robert Scoble. There is a way to make this a win-win situation for both the employee and the company, but it takes patient effort, a genuine desire to evolve the cooperate culture to one characterized by transparency, and a willingness to experiment with different approaches in order to find one that works. What do you think? Should corporations be open to employee’s building a personal brand? What advice would you give to a company, or to an employee? Can you cite some examples of companies you feel have done a good job in this respect? Feel free to weigh in with a comment.
• Lesson From a Factory: Know How It Works 10 June, 2010, 7:36 am
  One of the best incentives I had for going back to college each year was my summer job. From my high-school graduation  to my college graduation, I worked a 6 a.m. factory maintenance shift. Getting up at 5:15 a.m. every morning during the summer months to cleaning heating boilers, sweeping floors and painting was not ideal for a young college student. However, looking back, it was a great experience and one where some practical lessons were learned that apply to my business today. One lesson that often comes to mind is the day I was assigned to Ron, the head of maintenance for the factory. My job that day was to follow him and do whatever he needed done. In the first few hours he got a call on his radio that one of the assembly lines was down due to one of the machines breaking. When we arrived at the line there were about five people looking in, around and under the machine. Ron then opened a flap on the side of the machine, took out a flashlight and set of pliers and spent the next 45 seconds under the flap with only his legs visible. Once finished, he walked over, turned the machine back on, and all was back in working order. As we walked away, he looked at me and said, “Sometimes fixing things is all in knowing how it works.” This principle can be applied in many B2B organizations today and one that will be the focus of my blog posts. As a new contributor to MarketingProfs, I will focus on marketing and sales process– in other words, how things work. Repeatedly, I see marketing and sales groups vastly improve their return on their marketing and sales investments by focusing on process improvements. I am very excited to be a part of this community and look forward to providing insights and having great dialogue around the marketing and sales process in hopes that this will be an interactive forum for the MarketingProfs community.
• 5 Strategies for Surviving Contagion 9 June, 2010, 9:05 am
  In a tightly interdependent global economy, information is exchanged everyday between people, communication networks and computers. Sometimes the information flow is benign or favorable. However, when the flow consists of gossip, rumor, bad news or panic, there is a tendency for such information to accelerate and take on a life of its own. When contagion swirls, five strategies can help marketing executives control the damage and even take advantage of chaotic circumstances. Contagion takes many forms in our global economy. Some definitions for contagion include the “spread and transmission of disease, ideas, influence and emotions.” Another aspect of contagion is that it spreads in unimaginable ways. Thus, sometimes what seems like a tiny spark ends up as a full fledged forest fire. Marketing professionals know that contagion can sometimes be extremely dangerous to our companies, brands and reputations. Therefore, it’s imperative to not only recognize early warning signs of contagion, but to react quickly when contagion spills over. Below are five strategies that can help us plan, prepare, manage and even seize the advantage when contagion strikes. First, manage your risks. Author Nassim Taleb of Black Swan fame, says the essence of risk management, “lies in maximizing the areas where we have some control over the outcome while minimizing the areas where we have no control of the outcome.” One method of risk management is to maintain a significant buffer against unforeseen forces. For example, in financial services, companies are required by regulations to maintain a liquid capital cushion to buffer financial losses. Financial services firms also measure their risk exposure via Value at Risk (VAR) modeling or other stress test methods. And while it can be intelligently argued such methods are flawed, for many companies they remain the best tools available for analytical risk management. Second, calmer heads prevail. When the European debt crisis threatened to engulf nation states in the European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel did her very best to stay above the fray. While contagion swirled around Merkel, she maneuvered among constituents, political leaders and central bankers to find a solution that would benefit both Germany and the greater European Union. And though some pundits argued that Merkel perhaps made matters worse by delaying action for weeks, sometimes it pays to gather information and not make hasty decisions. Third, have a plan. Suppose a crisis hits, have you considered the likely outcomes? This is where scenario planning can help. Scenario planning is the consideration of known facts with plausible alternatives. Think about a given a situation and the top five likely outcomes. Then prepare a plan of action. Afraid you won’t get scenario planning right? Author Bill Ziemba reminds us that it’s darn near impossible to get scenario planning exactly correct. “What is important,” he says, “is to cover the board of possible occurrences. Then you will make sound decisions with risk under control.” Fourth, consider using overwhelming force to deal with contagion. Sometimes the only way to restore confidence is via “shock and awe” or the use of the “big guns”. Best practices include the recent response of forty-three children’s medicine manufacturers to remove all potentially tainted products from store shelves until contamination causes can be determined. In another example, facing fraud allegations by the Securities Exchange Commission, Goldman Sachs hired Greg Craig, the lawyer who “saved Bill Clinton from impeachment.” Instead of responding in piecemeal to contagion, often it is better to respond in force. Fifth, when contagion strikes look for opportunities in chaos. When the Wall Street “flash crash” occurred on May 6th 2010, liquidity evaporated from the market and bellwether companies like P&G saw their stock drop 35%, while global consulting firm Accenture’s stock traded briefly for one penny! Meanwhile, on financial news network CNBC, the normally hyperactive and boorish Jim Cramer calmly announced that anyone with modicum of common sense should buy those two stocks. Ultimately, the market corrected itself within a twenty-minute time frame and those who listened and immediately acted on Mr. Cramer’s advice made a mint. Where there’s panic, nervousness or irrational behavior, there’s also likely opportunity for gain—if you’re paying attention! With today’s global economy tightly linked by capital, labor, and information flows at the speed of light, it’s not uncommon for bad news, nervousness, or outright panic to spill across borders and disrupt even the most stable of companies and industries. Moreover, what may seem like a non-event can quickly transform into a full blown crisis. Listed above are five strategies when contagion swirls. Do you have others?
• Takeaways for Achieving Relevance in Direct Digital Marketing 9 June, 2010, 8:57 am
  What is relevance? The term is thrown around quite a bit in the marketing world. Marketers continually strive (and at times, struggle) to achieve it and even define it. Many marketing departments struggle with implementing a relevance-based approach and often encounter several barriers like out-dated or ineffective technology, and other organizational constraints. I am in the midst of penning a six piece series for MarketingProfs on achieving relevance in direct digital marketing. The series sheds some light on how to achieve relevance, outlines the common barriers to achieving it, and offers five keys to overcoming those barriers. For this post, I am going to break out some of the key takeaways and give you a taste of what’s to come with the rest of the series. In the first installment of the series, I defined relevance in the realm of direct digital marketing as: Tailoring direct digital marketing communications to customers and prospects, and ensuring that the information, offers, and calls to action are optimized based on a user’s known attributes, behavioral attributes, and past activity. Now that we have a working definition of relevance, how do we get past the various barriers to implementation? For many marketers and brands, the most significant hurdles to delivering timely and relevant marketing communications come from inside a marketing organization.  Challenges from within an organization can put limitations on the adoption of technology and best practices, as well as the manpower to create engaging programs and campaigns. As I mentioned in my second series installment, “Achieving Relevance in Direct Digital Marketing: Overcoming Organizational Constraints,” you may have to shake things up a bit within your organization to overcome these barriers. Sure, the thought of making organizational changes can be daunting, but the need to make the necessary changes to adopt a relevance-centered direct digital marketing approach is very real. If you’re feeling intimidated by the thought of where to begin or how to approach the process, take a look at the three most common organizational constraints, and how to overcome them in the second installment of the series. Barriers from within an organization may be the most significant hurdle to overcome. But, barriers to technology adoption come in a close second. It is important to remember achieving relevance with your marketing communications requires technology that makes the process more efficient and effective, not painful and prohibitive. It is also important for marketers to ask themselves, “How involved in the technology selection process am I?” If you’re not very involved, it’s time to grab the reins and aggressively drive technology adoption and consolidation within your organization. If marketers are being held responsible for a brand’s connection with consumers over the digital channels, they can’t afford to be isolated from the technology evaluation and selection process. So how do you piece together the technology puzzle to find out what you need, and how do you become more involved in the evaluation and selection of that technology? Take a look at the two critical steps every brand must take when choosing a technology, outlined in the third installment of the series, and what marketers can do to become more involved in the selection and implementation process. The upcoming fourth installment of the series focuses on the importance of segmentation and targeting in a relevance-centric approach to direct digital marketing. It will be full of actionable ideas and analysis to help you achieve relevance in your direct digital marketing efforts. Articles five and six will focus on how to take an incremental approach, and how to develop a plan for implementing what you’ve learned.  Stay tuned! What barriers do you encounter when implementing a relevance-based approach? How are you overcoming them?