The Marketers Forum - UK Marketing Courses CIM, CAM, MRS Qualifications - London and South East England

Ben Stroud, social media strategy consultant and former co-ordinator of social media at ‘Ministry of Sound’, joined The Marketers Forum recently to deliver an evening  masterclass on Twitter.

In his work with Ministry of Sound he significantly increased their volume of Twitter followers within a relatively short period – he did this by listening, engaging and loading relevant and interesting content. Ben used his experience in social media with one London’s top clubs to address TMF delegates and share with them his perception of Twitter, best (and worst practice) and the platform’s brand new features.

Ben kicked off with an analogy of Twitter being like a crowded pub – it’s very noisy with lots of people shouting, engaging and sharing information (compared with the coffee shop environment of Facebook)…

He gave a brief overview of  Twitter;

• Real time communication
• Share content
• Brief, conversational bursts (140 characters)
• Cheap influence-based marketing
• Viral
• Can be used to gauge sentiment

Using Twitter as a business tool, Ben went on to suggest ideas of good content to share;

• Voucher codes (‘Thanks!’)
• Relevant news/blog links (‘interesting…’)
• Interesting content from other sources (‘wow, they shared it’)
• Retweet your followers (‘So they ARE listening…’)

However you shouldn’t;

• Broadcast
• Ignore users concerns
• Be dishonest
• Spam

He went on to reveal some top apps and time-saving tips for managing Twitter;

• (http://bit.ly) – A url shortening device, which provides detailed tracking information to enable measurement of the all important social media ROI
• (http://hootsuite.com) – Allows you to update and view your multiple social media platforms at once and enables the sending of scheduled tweets (or facebook updates)
• Co-Tweet – Targeted specifically for businesses, it is a multiple – user management tool, that allows tracking and reporting and organises all your tweets into one inbox.
• Twitter Lists – A useful Twitter tool that enables the user to create lists of people / brands / competitors / advocates they want to follow publicly or privately.

Ben’s presentation coincided neatly with the recent updates to Twitter and he touched briefly upon some of the new features;

• Embedded video content (Vimeo, Youtube)
• Embedded pictures (Twitpic, Flickr) ‘A Tweet is 140 characters, but a picture is still worth 1,000 words’
• Related content is linked to a Tweet (relevant replies, accounts, followers)

either to attend or deliver a presentation please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

On Thursday evening The Marketers Forum were lucky enough to host a talk by Dave Cornthwaite, an adventurer, author, documentary maker and motivational speaker.

“Choose comfort or choose ambition. They don’t come in the same box”

At 25 Dave had a well paid, but unfulfilling job as a graphic designer, his own house, a long term girlfriend and a cat… however he gave all of it up in pursuit of a dream. Having always wanted to write, Dave realised he needed ‘stories’ in order to enable his writing. A turn on a longboard in 2005, gave birth to an idea to travel the world, raising awareness for causes he was passionate about, whilst creating material he could write about…

He began planning 2 incredible journeys, which saw him skate the length of Britain from John O’ Groats to Lands End and then in early 2007 he pushed his skateboard Elisa, 5823km across Australia between Perth and Brisbane. Dave became the first person to cover these distances on a skateboard and has a Guinness World Record to mark his achievement, a host of global media coverage and a remarkable book entitled BoardFree, detailing his journey.

Dave’s odyssey across Oz, fuelled his passion for adventure and travel and he threw himself into further experiences, activities and charities. Soon after, he became the face of Aquaskipping, a human-powered hydrofoil and broke the British speed record. This was followed by a kayaking expedition in late 2009 along the Murray, Australia’s longest river, from the source to mouth. Dave has put together a documentary about his experience to raise awareness for environmental and climatic factors affecting the once great river.

Moving on, Dave tried stand-up paddle boarding and crossed Lake Geneva in the summer of 2010, a distance of 86.9km in a record breaking 2 days. Once again, he has captured and documented his journey.

All these adventures have led to Dave dreaming up ‘Expedition 1000′. His aim is to raise a million pounds for charity by “undertaking 25 separate journeys in excess of 1000 miles in distance, each using a different form of non-motorised transport. The project will cover every continent, cross the three major oceans and see Dave reach both poles.”

  You can find out more about ‘Expedition 1000′ by visiting Dave’s website.

Dave’s intention is to inspire people to follow their dreams and think outside the box. Dave closed his talk with TMF by encouraging the audience to make a list of everything they want to achieve in life, be it small or large and then make it happen.

He did.

or connect with him on Facebook (Dave Cornthwaite) or Twitter (@DaveCorn)

Dave is also featured in Sport Magazine this week – more info here.

The author of this article, Peter Rees, has known Paul for many years, since he was one of his tutors for the Post Grad. Diploma in Marketing.

This post contains the 1st section of a 2 part interview.

Here are a few details of his remarkable career…

PR Smith MBA, PG Dip (Fin), B.Sc. (mngt), Diploma in Marketing

Paul has helped hundreds of companies from innovative SMEs to IBM via his consultancy and seminars and thousands of companies via his books.

A Dubliner, based in London, Paul’s marketing consultancy integrates basic marketing with cutting edge social media, digital body language, virtual worlds and creative thinking. Paul works in both B2B and B2C markets in Europe, USA, China and Africa. Paul’s SOSTAC ® Planning System is used around the world and his books are published in seven languages. Paul is author of Strategic Marketing Communications; Great Answers to Tough Marketing Questions, eMarketing eXcellence, Marketing Communications – a ‘marketing major’ (Chart. Inst. Marketing) and his own (self published) personal passion and social media campaign to get sportsmanship back on the agenda, www.GreatMomentsOfSportsmanship.com.

 

 

1. You are perhaps best known for the excellent SOSTAC ® marketing planning methodology and model that you developed. Can you say how it came to be developed? Why do you think it has such a broad following and such wide usage?

Although SOSTAC® is so simple it actually took me almost 10 years to develop. When I took my MBA back in the 80s I was so frustrated reading books with long meandering marketing plans that were over complicated and impossible to remember. So I kept in touch with my classmates and asked them to send me just the contents page (list of contents) from their marketing plans.

I analysed all of them and developed my own new structure – which went through several iterations until I came up with SOSTAC®. I knew it was a winner and registered it as a trademark.

Everyone is welcome to use it – all I ask is that they acknowledge me as the inventor, use the registered trade mark symbol and put a link to my web site www.PRSmith.org (ideally using the anchor text SOSTAC ® as the anchor text (or the blue hyperlink text).

Situation Analysis (where are we now?)

Objectives (where do we want to go?)

Strategy (how do we get there)

Tactics (the details of Strategy – marketing mix etc.)

Action (the details of tactics- who does what)

Control (measurement)

That is why it is so simple – it’s easy to use, has a strong logical structure and can be adapted to any plan – whether a business plan, marketing plan, social media marketing plan, personal plan etc.

Add the 3M resources and you’ve got an outline plan. I’m developing some SOSTAC® eWorkBooks & Planning templates to be released this September.

 

2. How well do you think marketers perform Marketing Planning, especially in the emergent area of Digital Marketing? How can they improve their performance here?

Strategy is a common weakness in many plans. In fact, a few years ago I co-authored a book about Marketing Communications Strategy and discovered that a lot of companies do not have any crystal clear, razor sharp strategies.

To get a good strategy several options should be considered before selecting the final strategy. If the strategy is wrong everything else is wrong. As Kenichi Ohmae once said to me ’There’s no point rowing harder, if you are rowing in the wrong direction.’

Key components for strategy include: STOP & SIT – Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning linked to Objectives and Sequence, Integration and Tools.

With digital marketing strategy, deciding which tools to use and how much resource to allocate is particularly challenging. I suggest you allocate budgets according to where your audience is (online or offline). And also consider constant testing i.e. testing and measuring reactions to different tools and offers.

This is why digital marketing actually gets easier as everything is easily memorable and easily changeable. However, social media is not a short term campaign, it takes time to build a following and then even more time to maintain it with great, relevant, content and, most importantly – engagement.

Highly engaged small number of followers is better than a disengaged massive following. Ask your followers what they want. The will tell you. Then deliver it. Digital marketing naturally creates customer driven businesses. Marketing utopia – which is fully explained in the the FREE Download Chapter 1 of my 5th ed. Marketing Communications – integrating offline and online with social media today from my PRSmith Marketing facebook page PR Smith web site.

 

 

3. I believe the new 5th edition of your book ‘Marketing Communication’ is available soon. What has changed since previous versions? How have your ideas developed?

Four new chapters: New marketing (integrating social media into processes); Brands; CRM and the final chapter is about Web Sites and Social Media. As in previous editions, the first half is about the background to comms i.e customer psychology, communications models, comms agencies, planning etc., while the second half addresses each of the 10 comms tools online and offline.

I also introduce the Ladder Of Engagement which, I hope, helps people to put a simple structure on an often chaotic social media world. It also helps marketers to choose different strategic levels of engagement with their customers according to their resources available. All of this is downloadable as a free chapter from my facebook page PR Smith Marketing facebook page or my PRSmith.org web site for a few months.

 

 

Useful Resources and Links

Twitter: PR_Smith

Web site: www.PRSmith.org my web site

Facebook: PRSmithMarketing my facebook page

Blog: Great Moments of Sportsmanship.com my sportsmanship social media campaign – please join in.

Books by PR Smith

Smith, PR & Zook, Z. (2011) Marketing Communications 5th ed., Kogan Page

Smith, PR & Chaffey, D. (2008) eMarketing eXcellence 3rd ed., Butterworth Heinemann

Smith, PR (2003) Great Answers to Tough Marketing Questions, 2nd ed. , Kogan Page

Smith, PR, Berry C. & Pulford, A. (1999) Strategic Marketing Communications, Revised ed.

Smith, PR (2009) Great Moments of Sportsmanship, PR Smith self published.

CD ROMs by PR Smith

Smith, PR (2002) Marketing Essentials series of 10 CDs, PR Smith

Smith, PR (2004) eMarketing eXcellence 10 courses on one CD, PR Smith

Coming Soon SOSTAC ® Workbooks

 

 

Peter Rees DipM FCIM FRSA MCIPR, Chartered Marketer

Managing Director,

PR Strategic Marketing Ltd.

www.prstrategic.blogspot.com

Professor Malcolm H.B. McDonald MA(Oxon), MSc, PhD, D.Litt. FCIM FRSA, author of 43 books, was Professor of Marketing and Deputy Director Cranfield School of Management, is a graduate in English from Oxford University, in Business Studies from Bradford University Management Centre, has a PhD from Cranfield University and a D.Litt from BradfordUniversity . His extensive industrial experience includes a number of years as Marketing Director of Canada Dry.

 

He is Chairman of Brand Finance plc and five other companies. He spends much of his time working globally with the operating boards of the world's biggest multinational companies and in 2006 he was listed by the Times as one of the country's top ten consultants

 

1. You are well known as a prolific author – particularly in the area of Marketing Planning. What attracted you to focus on this area?

Although my first degree from Oxford University was in English Language and Literature, I couldn't afford to go into teaching so got a job as a graduate trainee with an international company and then became a Salesman, then an Area Manager and then a Marketing and Sales Manager. I then decided to complete

a Masters Degree in Business and it seemed natural to focus on marketing. Then having served as Sales and Marketing Director for Canada Dry for a number of years, I wanted to pass my knowledge and experience to others, so I entered the Academic community.

 

2. You have spoken and written on many occasions about the lack of relevant Market Segmentation in companies. Why do you think this is and how can they improve?

There are many scholarly studies that attest to the fact that market segmentation is the basis of successful strategy. The problem is, it is quite complex, both intellectually and in practice! Until it is taught properly in business schools and on marketing courses – which is not the case currently – it will continue to be a problem. If you look at our perennially successful companies like Tesco, P&G, 3M and the like, you will find that successful market segmentation lies at the heart of their success.

 

3. Digital Marketing and, in particular, Social Media seem to be 'the Next Big Thing'. Are marketers getting carried away with the hype, and how can these tools and techniques be used the most effectively?

There is so much rubbish (hype) talked about new media, that the whole domain has become a bit like a fad. All technology has done, is enable consumers to have more choice and to enjoy greater access to data. But consumers haven't changed at all and unless suppliers segment their markets properly and understand the media and channel preferences of people in each segment, they will continue to be bamboozled by such media. Having done this, companies need to develop proper objectives and strategies for communication through these media.

 

4. Why hasn't marketing been recognised for the value it can create? Why isn't marketing better represented in the boardroom?

The principle reason is that the barriers to entry to the profession are low and marketing as a discipline has been defined in such broad terms that in the UK alone, there are about a million so-called Marketers. The trouble is that few are professionally qualified, hence are seen by non-marketers as charlatans and indeed, most are. Until we have a critical mass of Chartered Marketers (via CIM) – in my view, a minimum of 20,000 – only then can we lobby boards of directors to insist on professional qualifications for their hires. Just like the professions such as Accountants, we need to get ourselves into a position where we can INSIST that the only people in marketing who can call themselves "professionals" are those who are licensed to practice by the professional body. Above all, marketers have to learn to speak the language of the boardroom and in particular they must learn to justify financially the substantial sums they are accountable for.

 

5. What advice would you give the Marketers who wish to increase their value and career prospects, and become more effective and efficient?

This is simple to answer. They must get themselves professionally qualified, preferably via a CIM qualification such as the CIM Postgraduate Diploma. They can then proceed to become Chartered Marketers.

 

Additional resources.

For more information about Malcolm and his work visit;

www.malcolm-mcdonald.com – presents the services provided by Professor McDonald and his team of consultants.

www.marketsegmentation.co.uk – provides an overview of the market segmentation process developed by Professor McDonald and Ian Dunbar.

www.market2win.com – is about the marketing simulator developed by Professor McDonald and Ed Bradford used for training individuals, businesses, schools and universities in strategic marketing.

www.bookdepository.co.uk/search?searchTerm=malcolm+mcdonald&search=search – for the range of marketing books authored by Professor McDonald.

 

This post has come via;

Peter Rees DipM FCIM FRSA MCIPR, Chartered Marketer

Managing Director,

PR Strategic Marketing Ltd.

www.prstrategic.blogspot.com

Twitter: @prstrategic

Linkedin: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/prstrategic

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=547756603

www.prstrategic.blogspot.comTwitter: @prstrategicLinkedin: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/prstrategicFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=547756603