The marketer's backpack

As summer winds down here is some required reading from some of the world’s finest marketing professors & educators.

The Marketer’s Backpack

The Marketer’s Backpack | 2

INTRODUCTIONRemember when you were younger and over the summer you pretty much forgot everything you learned in school the previous year? Of course you do. C’mon admit it. We understand for sure. Hey it’s summer vacation, we get it!

Today, however, we live and work in the real world and while we may get to take a vacation during the summer, we no longer can afford to forget anything.

As the summer vacation season winds down, at least in the northern hemisphere, we figured it was a good time to remind marketers of the key supplies and tools they need and to make sure they are in their proverbial backpacks as they gird up for the change of season.

But wait there’s more… much more.

In addition to learning some “marketing basics” you need to always remember, you will also read right from the proverbial horse’s mouth, as it were—the type of content educators are teaching the marketers of tomorrow—plus other interesting insights.

So get two No. 2 sharpened pencils ready, sit up straight and pay attention to the teacher at all times and an apple wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.


JEFFREY L. COHENDISTINGUISHED LECTURER IN MARKETING

ANALYTICS AND SOCIAL MEDIABall State University

PETER FADER PROFESSOR OF MARKETING, CO-DIRECTOR OF WHARTON CUSTOMER ANALYTICS INITIATIVE

The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania

ERIC BRADLOWK.P. CHAO PROFESSOR OF MARKETING,

STATISTICS, AND EDUCATIONThe Wharton School of Business,

University of Pennsylvania

JOSH MURDOCKPROFESSOR OF EDUCATIONAL

TECHNOLOGY & SOCIAL NETWORKINGValencia College

BARBARA KAHNPATTY AND JAY H. BAKER

PROFESSOR OF MARKETINGThe Wharton School of Business,

University of Pennsylvania

MARK SCHAEFERMARKETING CONSULTANT, COLLEGE

EDUCATOR AND AUTHOR Rutgers University

JESSICA ROGERSCOCE FACULTY, GRADUATE SOCIAL

MEDIA AND MARKETINGSouthern New Hampshire University

THE FACULTY


THE CURRICULUM

Market ing 101

The Same, Only Different

Share& Share Alike

Compare & Contrast

What s in it for me, the marketer?

The #1 thing marketers may have lost sight of over the summer.

What are your observations with respect to the nuances of the B2B and B2C marketing disciplines?

What do you think a B2B marketer can learn from B2C or vice versa?

Can you compare and contrast the curriculum that you’re teaching and the current roles and responsibilities of today’s marketers?

What will you teach my future employees this year?


MARKETING 101

THE #1 THING MARKETERS MAY HAVE LOST SIGHT OF OVER THE SUMMER

“While customers do respond to marketing messages, they also form impressions based on their own experiences or from other customers’ experiences. If customers resonate with your marketing strategy and your offerings, they can become your best advocates.”

“It’s not always about the numbers, it’s about the community you are building. Sometimes this can be hard for those outside of social media to understand because of the focus on numbers in regards to marketing. A strong community that supports the business or efforts of an organization can be more powerful than an ad. With a strong community the numbers will be there in the end.”

BARBARA KAHN:

JOSH MURDOCK:

ERIC BRADLOW:

“I would say that the biggest missed takeaway is within-person heterogeneity. What I mean by that is that people have recognized for a long time that customers differ from each other and it is why segmentation has become so popular in marketing. However, segmentation is based on a mistaken premise that there is ‘only one version of each customer’. I disagree with this premise. People buy products and services with different identities and thus within-person heterogeneity is just as important as between person. This is why geo-targeting has such high promise because it can target you based on your location/identity at a given moment.”


“Often new technology is either not embraced quickly enough by marketing organizations, or it is embraced and looked to as a ‘fix it all strategy’. Specifically I am seeing Social Media being looked to as a solution for far too many problems. Social Media is a tool for marketers; it is to be used in conjunction with other ‘marketing tools’ with a solid understanding of marketing first and foremost. The most successful marketing—regardless if it is social or not—revolves around market segmentation and a traditional marketing concept such as AIDA (Attention-Interest-Desire-Action.)

You have to get your customer’s Attention, build their Interest in your product, and convince them they want your offer by building Desire. Finally, the consumer will take Action and make a purchase. Social media can be a tool to accomplish all of this. In some ways, it can be a better, more efficient way, but again it is still just a tool in your marketing tool belt.

Traditional marketing and social media marketing must be integrated and nurtured in order to realize the full potential of a very powerful combo. Without fully integrating the two, businesses can take on great risks related to over-dependence on one or over-use of another. Businesses must define their strategy, roles, and expectations of social media before integration and implementation. They must also understand tactics are far different from strategies. Simply knowing how to use social platforms does not constitute ‘marketing’, social activity must be done with a marketing strategy in place, it must have some sort of rhyme or reason.”

MARKETING 101

THE #1 THING MARKETERS MAY HAVE LOST SIGHT OF OVER THE SUMMER

“Too many marketing activities are siloed from the top-level business objectives of a company, and are not measured against metrics that others in the company care about. If your executives follow daily, weekly, or monthly numbers related to things like sales, customer retention, cost savings, and customer satisfaction, then reporting softer marketing numbers will not win any points with those executives. Marketers need to find ways to tie their efforts to those business metrics.”

“We have seemingly created a digital divide between ourselves

and our customers. We tend to treat people differently online than we would treat them in real life. We shout at them, peddle to them, and market to them online when all they really want to do is play Farmville.

While people may avoid our selling efforts, they will be attracted to our helping efforts. Be human in your online presence, be helpful, and be honest. That's how business relationships form in real life and also online.”

JEFFREY L. COHEN:

MARK SCHAEFER: JESSICA ROGERS:


THE SAME, ONLY DIFFERENT

WHAT ARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE NUANCES OF THE B2B AND B2C MARKETING DISCIPLINES?

“I'm generalizing, but usually the dataset for B2C is much larger than B2B. The challenge is that the truth and opportunities don't lie in the big data. They are in the little data at the edges. If you make decisions based on averages and Pareto charts, that is lazy marketing. The insights and innovations are likely to be in the solitary comments on the fringe that indicate a shift, an idea, a breakthrough.

I believe these were probably easier to come by when we were standing on the shop floor talking to customers but now that the data is so vast and cold it is going to take a deeper effort to fight for the wisdom in the small numbers.”

MARK SCHAEFER:

PETER FADER:

“I think that the B2B vs. B2C distinction is largely an artificial one, and we make too much of it. Well-constructed marketing courses will draw examples from (and offer applications to) both domains in a relatively balanced manner. I would rather extract away from any particular industry sector and teach the general principles of how customers (however they are defined) behave over time. The basic patterns are remarkably robust across domains, but we rarely teach them to our students. So let’s teach ‘customers doing things over time’ in a lot of detail, and then focus on the nuances that vary from one setting to another.”


“As a lifelong B2B marketer, and co-author of The B2B Social Media Book, B2B marketing makes sense to me. No matter what techniques you use, you are ultimately driving prospects into a buying process where you can track where they came from. While selling through a distribution network can complicate things, a company sales rep, or someone no more than a couple steps removed away from the company, handles B2B purchases, making tracking possible. I have never understood how Coca-Cola marketers can track their efforts to sell a bottle of Coke at the grocery store or convenience store. This action is too far removed from their brand marketing and advertising to attribute action to particular campaigns.”

“Understanding analytics at its core can help marketers understand their customers and community better. Data can be overwhelming until it’s put into simple terms, connected together, or able to analyze easier. B2B needs to look at the data of their customers or potential customers to understand how they can help them or bring them value. B2C needs to bring correlation between what they are doing to unify their marketing efforts and how their customers are reacting.”

JEFFREY L. COHEN :

JOSH MURDOCK:

ERIC BRADLOW:

“When it comes to CLV, targeted marketing, etc… the key is that the methods are ‘unit agnostic’. Whether I am dealing with a customer or a business client, data-driven insights are relevant. What does change in a B2B setting is that the frequency of transactions and the ability to collect business-level data is typically less. Furthermore, decision-making of a business unit as opposed to an individual is very different and hence non-optimality tends to be more prevalent in a B2B setting.”

THE SAME, ONLY DIFFERENT

WHAT ARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE NUANCES OF THE B2B AND B2C MARKETING DISCIPLINES?


“In both situations, the core premise is customer-driven insights. In B2B there tends to be fewer customers who are perhaps more rationally driven in their decision making. Developing customized solutions can engender strong loyalty. In B2C, there are usually many more customers, but insights can be gained from some customers’ experiences that can be translated or recommended to others.”

BARBARA KAHN:

JOSH MURDOCK:

“Many times B2B forgets that behind business are people. People and building community with people is what successful B2C marketers understand. How can you build your community between other business in B2B is by sharing community, building community among clients, and realizing real people are still behind these businesses.”

“Many times B2B forgets that behind business are people.” — JOSH MURDOCK

SHARE & SHARE ALIKE

WHAT DO YOU THINK A B2B MARKETER CAN LEARN FROM B2C OR VICE VERSA?


“B2B marketers can learn creativity, creating an emotional response and storytelling from the B2C pros, and B2C marketers can learn more about calls-to-action, attribution, and leading a buyer through a journey from their B2B brethren.”

JEFFREY L. COHEN:

PETER FADER:

“All industries can learn from each other—if they were willing to accept the fact that the basic behavioral patterns are astonishingly similar across domains. Every company does some things well and other things poorly, but they spend way too much time convincing themselves why their industry (and company) is unique. Instead they should actively look for (and celebrate) the similarities rather than hyping up the (surprisingly small) differences. This is part of taking a truly scientific approach to marketing—constantly learning to find the core principles and their limiting conditions. This kind of cross-industry learning should be baked into the professional development activities for every company, but it happens very rarely.”

“All industries can learn from each other—if they were willing to accept the fact that the basic behavioral patterns

are astonishingly similar across domains.” — PETER FADER

SHARE & SHARE ALIKE

WHAT DO YOU THINK A B2B MARKETER CAN LEARN FROM B2C OR VICE VERSA?


“Unfortunately, most of today’s marketers are barely different

than yesterday’s marketers, and that goes right back to the

fact that today’s marketing courses are barely different from yesterday’s courses. So we keep reinforcing bad ideas (e.g., heavy reliance on demographics) and inefficient practices (e.g., trying to ‘train’ our low-value customers to take on higher value behaviors). Beyond all the shiny new toys that today’s marketers have at their disposal, the basic way that marketing is practiced is all too similar to how Don Draper and his Mad Men colleagues practiced it. And this is a darn shame, since Don et al, couldn’t have known nearly as much about their customers as we can know today. We need to more actively pivot from product-centric to customer-centric thinking, but it’s been a very slow and uneven process so far.”

“I am teaching students about the importance of their public, online presence and how to keep up with a constant flow of information in their industry. This would not be an explicit part of their marketing role, but an understanding of this will make them stronger marketers. Traditionally, it has been social media savvy folks on the team who really understand how to build a personal presence and follow all the right sources in a manageable way, but these skills are important as a solid foundation for all marketers.

Students learn how to create and analyze social media marketing campaigns that resonate with customers, B2B and B2C, and are based on solid marketing and business principles. Proper goal setting and how to review analytics to understand success are also a key part of my learning objectives. This fits in with the skills and requirements of marketers in the field. Marketers create campaigns, analyze competitors’ campaigns, and review the success of their own efforts.”

“I’m focused on putting personal networking and personal branding as any important skill to understand that will help you work with business in developing an identity and community for themselves. If you don’t practice what you preach in your own social networks, how can you expect businesses to believe you can make the magic happen for them?”

JOSH MURDOCK:

PETER FADER: JEFFREY L. COHEN:

COMPARE & CONTRAST

CAN YOU COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE CURRICULUM THAT YOU’RE TEACHING AND THE CURRENT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF TODAY’S MARKETERS?


WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME, THE MARKETER?

WHAT WILL YOU TEACH MY FUTURE EMPLOYEES THIS YEAR?

“The key to modern marketing is that individual-level data is now available which allows for targeting of customers with customized products, prices, coupons, recommendations, etc. The content that I teach in the classroom is this customer analytics oriented philosophy and associated methods so that the students recognize each customer as a ‘profit center’ and a firm’s ability to be profitable in the long-run relies on maximizing customer value. What this also implies is that some customers need to be ‘fired’ because their costs outstrip their revenue. This customer-focused orientation has implications for what data you capture, what employees you hire, and the firm culture of data-driven decision making.”

ERIC BRADLOW:

“The key to modern marketing is that individual-level data is now available which allows for targeting of customers with customized

products, prices, coupons, recommendations, etc.” — ERIC BRADLOW

“I teach Customer Behavior and Strategic Brand Management. The core principle is the idea of customer-based marketing (as opposed to product-based marketing). In product-based marketing, if customers want your product they come to you. Here it makes sense to focus on product attributes, and growth comes from developing new products based on shared product experience or selling products to new markets. In customer-based marketing, you focus on what customers value and offer products or services that meet these needs better than the competition. Since all customers are not the same, this requires the marketer to segment the market and target strategic segments. Brands need to foster an emotional, authentic connection with the customer. They need to engender trust and generate strong loyalty.”

BARBARA KAHN:

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME, THE MARKETER?

WHAT WILL YOU TEACH MY FUTURE EMPLOYEES THIS YEAR?


“I teach two related (and unique) elective courses. One of them (Applied Probability Models in Marketing) teaches MBA and undergraduate students how to build predictive models from scratch that are practical, powerful, and portable. It is one of the most popular electives at Wharton, and employers love to cherry pick students from it to apply these skills directly to their data-driven problems.

A few years ago, a bunch of MBAs came to me and asked for a new course—one that will let them take those same models and build ‘customer-centric’ strategies around them. This other course (Managing the Value of Customer Relationships) has also become very popular, and has been extended to my recent book Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage, a course entitled An Introduction to Marketing and an online-only executive education course, Strategic Value of Customer Relationships.

So employers are thrilled by my current teaching, and it’s really great for me to see how much demand there is for these offerings.”

“The newest course I have been teaching is called Social

Networking for Job Search, geared to preparing students to

find jobs after graduation utilizing various social networking platforms and best practices. Learning how to use social networking skills as a tool to build your personal learning and professional networks should be happening while students are in college. Understanding the power of various networks, especially by growing the connection utilizing social media is important in learning and networking with professionals around the globe.”

JEFFREY L. COHEN:

JOSH MURDOCK: PETER FADER:

“I start by explaining the difference between personal social media,

which is what most college students do, and professional

social media. They need to understand the importance of a professional profile, not just on LinkedIn, but on all social platforms, if they are going into marketing. This is part of the transition to the working world. I tie social media to business results and the basic principles of marketing, so students understand the value of social media to an organization. I go through major and minor social platforms, looking at current examples and best practices, so students have an understanding of what is happening right now in social media marketing.”

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Visit oracle.com/marketingcloud

Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Class dismissed.Go forth, apply what you learned, and always

keep a copy of this in your own backpack.

http://oracle.com/marketingcloud

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The marketer's backpack