Global Marketing Operations
The Value of Managed Services in B2B Marketing
Given the rapid shift of a Broadcast to Digital marketing operations model, it’s no surprise that marketing departments struggle with the day-to-day execution of their digital marketing and lead generation programs.
In the old Broadcast operations model, Agencies were responsible for everything: creative, ad timing, execution, and analytics – with no direct interaction with customers. Life was so easy then!
Enter the Digital Age, where companies are now responsible for all of these tasks formerly borne by the Agencies. The knee-jerk reaction for a lot of companies was to invest in enterprise software, in hopes that it would replace a lot of the work that the Agencies formerly performed. Unfortunately, the reality is that there is a big gap between marketing objectives and software functionality. Most companies have limited resources to maintain software while managing the day-to-day details of campaigns without knowing if their software investments have paid off.
Stanford Graduate School of Business sponsored a research report in March 2013 that explores the business value and adoption trends of B2B Managed Services. Philosophically, I’ve long been a fan of this approach that includes a services framework defined by dynamic KPIs and key technologies to support the overall strategy. My favorite quote from the Stanford report:
“Companies continue to struggle to get return on investment from the traditional licensed software model, which rewards the technology vendor, regardless if the projects are successful or not. This new research from Stanford provides further proof that the B2B Managed Services model not only offers lower cost, but higher business value than traditional approaches to integration.”
The report goes on to describe two primary benefits of a Managed Services approach:
1) Financial Benefits. This includes improved cost visibility, savings from streamlining operations, lower direct software costs, and fewer dependencies on IT resources.
2) Customer Engagement. Companies surveyed in the report said that their customers found it easier to do business with them.
Financial benefits and higher customer engagement. In today’s challenging economic climate, is there anything else? Check out the full report here.
Has your organization adopted a Managed Services approach with your key suppliers? What’s working? What’s on your “wish list?” I’d love to hear your thoughts. Reach out to me on Twitter @AllisonLIOX.
Add Video Marketing to Your To-Do List Today
Is it any wonder that online video marketing is at the top of most marketers’ to-do lists?
- Eighty-five percent of U.S. Internet users view online video.
- By 2014, online video will account for over 50 percent of all Internet traffic.
- By 2016, two-thirds of the world’s mobile traffic will be from video.
- YouTube alone averages 4 billion hits each day.
- You Tube reports 300 million views from mobile devices every day.
These data points came from a recent post (Tap Into the Power of Online Video Marketing) by John Convery, president and CEO of John Convery Consulting in Issaquah, Washington. And as you know from this blog and others, there are many other statistics supporting this obvious video trend which has proven it knows no geographical or cultural boundaries. Continue reading »
Global Marketing for Medical Device Companies
Marketers for medical devices and diagnostics find themselves trying to keep up with two forces; customers’ evolving needs and continued growth from international sales. An increasingly digital operating space gives marketers of medical devices a chance to address these forces by integrating more devices and more channels into their global marketing strategy. Continue reading »
The State of the Superstore During the Age of Global Ecommerce
When it comes to traditional retailing, Walmart is the leader of the old guard, the company whose case study is valuable enough to be covered in every business school. The trajectory of how a single store in Arkansas became a global brick and mortar retail giant has served as the aspirational blueprint for superstores like Home Depot, Staples and Costco, amongst others.
As the case study would tell you, in Walmart’s first five years the company opened 24 new stores, all in Arkansas. After that Walmart branched out to the surrounding states and then the natural growth progression of the period dictated that the company would continue to expand concentrically until their stores crossed borders and eventually domestic marketing became global marketing. Continue reading »
Website Translation to Ensure Consistent Global Branding
In honor of the season, here’s a timely Boston sports analogy. Website translation is like the process of changing from the Bruins rink to the Celtics hardwood. Days when both teams have home games the TD Garden crew must quickly transform the playing surfaces so that the games can proceed as planned.
For this to happen between games, the crew has developed a seamless process where the fans only see the two finished products; the ice and the court. Professional translation services function as the arena crew and work to ensure that the heavy lifting is done behind the scenes on their end, so clients only see the two finished products; the site in its original language and the now seamlessly translated multilingual site.
Benefits of Globalization Solutions
An inexperienced arena crew would still be taking away the boards when it’s time for layup lines and a substandard website translation tool will lead to comparably disastrous results. A proper professional translation should have a quick turnaround time, but should not be done hastily at the expense of quality. Companies should value a fast time to market for their multilingual website, but must also strive to find a translation service that supplies a localized translation that will allow the site to rank well in global SEO.
Web localization will provide the environment for your website to best succeed just like a home court advantage at the Garden. Ideally the localized website will drive desired traffic in the new market, and ultimately convert visitors into consumers. But just like how a team is only as strong as its weakest link, a multilingual website is only as strong as the quality of its translation. The original website’s content was carefully crafted with every word chosen for a particular reason, so make sure the detail that goes into the translation is just as thorough and accurate.
Traditional multilanguage website management is a tedious process. To learn how to simplify it, download our free eBook, Translation Proxy: A New Option for Managing Multilingual Websites.
Pulse of Video Marketing: Jaguar Releases Promotional Film Online
In an effort to promote the F-Type, Jaguar’s first new sports car in 50 years, the company has released a thirteen minute film featuring Homeland star Damian Lewis. The expensive ad has a polished cinematic feel that could convince someone who started watching half way through, that it’s a scene from a film rather than a commercial.
By design the length of the ad precludes it from being shown as a traditional TV commercial and so Jaguar posted it on YouTube where it has been watched more than 150,000 times in five days. With Desire, Jaguar joins the list of luxury brands whose global marketing operations have decided to bypass the restrictiveness of 30 second TV spots in favor of videos with extended run times, released exclusively online. Chanel, Prada, and Cartier before Jaguar, have all felt that their brand would be better reflected by releasing longer videos on the web that become viral events which viewers seek out. Continue reading »
Do You Take Global SEO Into Account When Creating New Content For Your Website?
SEO, search engines and ranking are three well known terms for any company with a website in today’s digital world. Yet when we set out to create new content for our global website, do we think enough about global SEO value and achieving a ranking in the top 5 organic search results for this new content? Continue reading »
Heineken’s Innovative Uses of Digital Marketing in Global Web Ops
In the days before product placement, movies had characters walking into bars and ordering “beers.” No brand specified, just a tacit understanding between patron and bartender of what type of nondescript suds was desired. Nowadays the labels on the sides of bottles are too valuable, so they are sold as mini billboards to companies who clamor to get their brands exposure in popular blockbusters. The deals for product placement are too lucrative for movie producers not to take advantage of and so they agree to rent out the props within the frames of their film to the highest bidder.
Product placement is particularly appealing for global brands because the exposure is visual and therefore equally effective no matter what language you speak. The green bottle and red star of Heineken is one of the iconic global brands that transcends language and is immediately recognizable to audiences worldwide. Last year as part of their global campaign management, Heineken reportedly paid $45 million for Daniel Craig in Skyfall to sip their beer instead of his signature martini. Shaking up Bond’s traditional drink order is one in a series of shifts to more innovative marketing practices that has benefited the standing of the company. Continue reading »
Value of Product Videos
Last week I watched a product video for a new type of coffee maker. I ordered it right afterwards, and the UPS guy just dropped it off. It’s a French press coffee maker that uses the K-cups, brilliant. But would I have bought it if I hadn’t watched the video? No – I needed to see it.
So in celebration of my new coffee maker, I thought I’d share the findings from a recent survey by Invodo and the e-tailing group about consumers’ product video-watching habits, called “How Consumers Shop with Video.” Continue reading »
