If we as buyers do not have a personal experience with a brand, or know someone who has, we generally defer to (and trust) the “wisdom of crowds” and their conversations about a particular brand or product to inform our purchasing decisions.  In the modern marketing world, in which social media and social CRM are moving at break-neck pace, the crowd-sourcing mechanism will be a primary influencer of how, when and where B2B consumers decide to make a purchase. The once-isolated customer is now an active consumer of expert opinions, product comparisons and peer reviews, using the Internet and massive social networking to gather the necessary information for making an informed purchase decision.

The new participatory role of the consumer has fundamentally changed B2B marketing by presenting companies with the opportunity to excite and engage prospective customers in their prevailing platform for conversation. Now that the consumer has control (as discussed in our recent whitepaper, Forget the Funnel – a New Look at the Stealth Buyer), companies who wish to have a voice in the conversation must develop integrated marketing strategies that deliver consumers offers and experiences in an authentic and relevant way.

So how do you generate inbound leads with a social media strategy?  Develop an integrated marketing communications program that strengthens your brand within the conversation, builds referrals, communities and influencers and makes sense of your social footprint – a strategy that will pave the way for attracting highly qualified inbound leads.  Miller rightfully asserts that companies thinking strategically about demand generation must commit a significant portion of their efforts to using social media as a means for tapping the wisdom of crowds and conversations and building trust for their brands and products.  Just as it was in the traditional sales cycle, trust is a critical component to building a customer relationship, and companies can leverage social media to grow their consumer relationships, enhance B2B lead generation efforts and ultimately, convert qualified prospects into revenue for their brand.

Many companies in today’s market might be struggling with the costs of increasing their physical footprint. But with the right strategic approach, companies can afford to increase their digital footprint to reach more prospects, increase engagement and generate highly qualified inbound leads.

Learn how to integrate, manage and maximize your company’s total social marketing universe. Request your Zeitgeist & Coffee demo now.

Some of us remember a similar transition about twenty years ago, when traditional graphic production (we’re talking galleys, xacto knives, spray mount, stat cameras and monstrous typesetting equipment) shifted into the computer age of desktop publishing. The tradesman-like skills of specialized dexterity, hand-eye coordination and endurance were replaced by amazing new tools – computer software, mouse and keyboard. Making the jump into modern production with a crash course in Quark, Photoshop or Illustrator (to name just a few) was intense, initially terrifying, but ultimately amazingly empowering. Modern tools have facilitated faster, easier and more sophisticated production of visual communications.

Gone were the days when it would take at least two people a full week to produce a single FSI. The specialties of typesetter and a paste-up artist morphed into one powerful resource: the graphic artist. Very much a blend of blue and white collar, graphic arts became a very rewarding way to apply one’s skills to “make” a living (not one you would like to see slip away into obsolescence). Fast forward to the Twenty-First Century, I would argue that our social world has upped the ante, and paved a new, wonderfully exciting avenue to further enhance that powerful resource.

Creating visual ways to communicate with each other very much entails strategic thinking, time-sensitive decisions and troubleshooting (the very nature of software and hardware playing nicely together requires this). Enter multimedia. A powerful new suite of proficiencies can be adapted from the skill and talent required by traditional print-based graphic arts. Good layout sensibility can be called upon and applied to rich media, which in turn enhances blogs, or enriches web experience, for example. Editing web content through custom (or not) CMS can become a slight side step from editing brochures in Quark or InDesign. The point here is that all those wonderful abilities, like a keen eye for high-end color, superior layout and composition, and incredible deadline driven organizational skills, can be applied, and I would say effectively enhanced by stretching into the new media frontier.

For me, unlike 1990, the demands and opportunities of this hot new transition is not nearly the stretch that Production 1.0 (pre-desktop) to Production 2.0 was. Computers as tools are now second nature, and we have all had to learn how to train ourselves on the fly. If we stay nimble and flexible, this new, infinitely networked world has unprecedented room for skill adaptation and unimagined growth.

Recent Media Logic rich media projects such as chooseMVP.com and our own CCM model (referenced above) and Zeitgeist & Coffee videos, utilized Adobe After Effects as a composition and animation tool, Final Cut Pro, and Sound Edit Pro to edit and enhance the Rich Media experience, and employed Flash to create the video player to make it all work online. Then our own holiday card employed Final Cut Pro, Sound Edit Pro as well as Flash to create an interactive microsite with “play along” functionality.

“Brand values can be established as a brand identity, but they must believably exist in the mind of the consumer. A brand can’t just say it stands for something and make it so. The consumer will decide, making it more important than ever for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will aid in brand differentiation and consumer engagement.”

–MarketingVOX

Case in point: Purchase College. This premier member of the State University of New York system had what many might consider an enviable situation – it was experiencing very little difficulty in recruiting students.

The challenge was in student retention.

As part of the SUNY system, Purchase College attracted many students expecting a “typical” SUNY experience – something you definitely won’t find at the distinctly different Purchase College. Even internally, Purchase had become a college of two minds, a unique combination of both arts conservatory and liberal arts/sciences mainstay.

In order to get more of the right students to apply and have fewer of the wrong ones enroll, Purchase College needed to start talking about itself in a more authentic and direct way – allowing prospective students to “self-select.”

Through our Mine & Dine and BrandAmp products, Media Logic quickly worked to uncover, identify and create a unified vision. Media Logic provided the necessary forum for leaders from across the campus community to come together and resolve the tension between the school’s “arts” side and its “liberal arts” side.

Under Media Logic’s guidance, Purchase College created a brand that was far more than the sum of its parts. Essential to the branding process were qualitative research, a geo-demographic analysis, predictive modeling and a comprehensive recruitment and retention plan. We were able to determine that Purchase’s ultimate value came not solely from its programs, but from the unique mindset and culture of the students themselves.

The entire campus – from faculty and students to administrators and alumni – embraced the new brand as an authentic reflection of who they really were. It was integrated into all recruitment communications, and guidelines were established to extend it across the entire college.

After the launch of the new brand, applications increased more than 60%. Selectivity was also up 16% (more than 30% for liberal arts), and persistence has risen by 10% and 12%, respectively.

Media Logic’s work with Penn Mutual on the development and launch of its Accumulation Builder Indexed Universal Life product (IUL) gives us a great example of how Brand Amp can be used in exactly this type of situation.

Now, when most people think of insurance, “exciting” probably isn’t the first word that springs to mind. But things around Penn Mutual have been exciting lately, as the company has been revving up its product development engines to address the unique challenges of our current economy.

John Hayes, Global CMO of American Express, summed it up nicely at a recent marketing conference when he said:

“The marketer that stops innovating in tough times is
‘carving their brand’s own tombstone.’ Companies that build
the infrastructure to respond to changing customer behavior
quickly will reap the rewards from customers who will be
looking to award their hard-earned dollars to those brands
which provide them with the greatest value and understand
their needs.”

Harnessing the power of Brand Amp, Media Logic and Penn Mutual looked at the shifts in the marketplace and identified key opportunities. This, in turn, led to development of a compelling value proposition and product messaging for “Accumulation Builder IUL” – an innovative new insurance product designed to unlock the potential of Penn agents’ current customer base.

To build engagement and increase product momentum, Media Logic also built proprietary tools that allowed Penn’s agents to get up to speed on the new product quickly and get ready to sell it confidently.

By taking advantage of BrandAmp, Penn Mutual was able to keep its offering in step with the evolution of its customers’ needs – helping ignite conversation and re-excite a target population.