by Fronetics | Sep 15, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy, Talent
Content marketing is significantly more effective when a designated leader is driving your strategy.
Who is leading your content marketing strategy? If you don’t have an immediate answer, your content marketing program probably will not be as effective as it could be.
Research shows that companies who designate someone to drive the execution of their content marketing strategy have greater success than those that do not. So your strategy should account for leadership, specifically naming a person or position that will be in charge of implementation, problem-solving, and measuring results.
Who could take on this role for your business? Here are a few ideas.
An executive
Curata reports that, by 2017, 51% of companies will have an executive in their organization who is directly responsible for an overall content marketing strategy. That’s how important it is to have someone leading your strategy: More than half of organizations will create or designate positions like chief content officer, VP of content, or director of content. If your company is large enough to support this human resource, you’ll likely reap great benefit from your content marketing efforts.
A marketing director
Is there a senior person on your marketing team with experience using content as a marketing tool? Having a marketing director lead your content strategy is a great option for companies who can afford to delegate some of that person’s responsibilities elsewhere to make room for this work. Marketing directors are generally organized and capable of leading a diverse team, and they are used to reporting on KPIs as they relate to marketing efforts.
Whoever produces most of your content
Many smaller or mid-sized companies don’t have large marketing teams, and instead rely on several people to take on content-production responsibilities in addition to their everyday tasks. These are the people who will be most familiar with your company’s content and strategy, and how they align with your business goals. Do any of these people have leadership abilities or experience running a cross-functional team? It could be worth outsourcing some content writing or production in order to allow that person to drive your content marketing strategy.
An advisory firm
Sometimes you don’t have the internal resources or expertise to execute your business’ content marketing on your own. Hiring a firm or professional to create and/or execute your strategy can take enormous pressure off of your employees. They are left to do their jobs, while an experienced team shoulders the burden of planning, producing, and reporting on the progress of your content marketing program. Such a partnership can be very beneficial to companies of all shapes and sizes.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog, Strategy, Supply Chain
If your customer experiences a break in service due to your company’s mistake, use this three-step approach to help save the relationship.
It can happen to good companies: Your organization makes a “relationship-defining” mistake with a new customer or, even worse, one of your best customers. How do you handle it?
On a recent client engagement where we were retained to increase sales force effectiveness, we got to see firsthand our client’s company reaction to an operational mistake in one of their aftermarket spare-parts service engagements. It wasn’t pretty.
Once the service break came to light, their first reaction was to go into “denial mode,” as they disputed the customer claim. After that didn’t work, they moved on to “shirk mode,” where they cited other factors that may have caused them to miss their service obligations. Lastly they entered “apology mode,” where they went overboard apologizing profusely instead of solving the problem in the first place. At that point, it got pretty ugly with their longstanding client.
What could they have done differently to remedy the situation and save the customer relationship? This is the advice I give my clients. It’s a pretty simple three-step formula that everyone in your organization should follow when there is a service disconnect of any proportion.
1) Get to the heart of the matter immediately.
Don’t look for back doors or contributors to help share the blame. If you make a mistake, own it outright and clearly. Don’t be wishy-washy. Be strong in your admission and stronger in your statements of reparation.
2) Contain and problem-solve.
Put your company’s energy here instead of trying to distance yourself from the problem. It will show your customer that your organization has core values and that your intent is to limit their exposure. Then fix the service break. You don’t need to be superheroes here. Be focused, listen, and act decisively.
3) Map the path to long-term resolution.
After the smoke has cleared and tempers have subsided, reaffirm your company’s commitment to your customer. Reiterate the steps you took to solve the problem — both the short-term fixes, as well as how you’ll ensure that the issue will not reoccur in the future. Very important: do it in writing. Conversations fade, as well as memories. Everyone will remember the pain of the service issue — make sure they remember the short-term and longer-term solution. One note of caution here: This is not the time to be patting yourself on the back. You screwed up, but you made it right. That’s why your customer chose you in the first place.
Customers don’t like mistakes, and they have a bigger dislike for mistakes that come with a lack of ownership and path to resolution. Follow these simple steps above to keep more customers for the long term.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 12, 2016 | Blog, Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chain, Talent
Today’s hiring managers in the supply chain face a number of challenges, so making the right hire is more difficult, and more important, than ever.
Finding the right person for a job opening is essential. Hiring the wrong candidate can be costly, not only in terms of team morale and productivity, but financially as well. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates the average cost of a bad hiring decision to be as much as 30% of an individual’s first-year potential earnings. That means a single bad hire with an annual income of $50,000 can equal a potential $15,000 loss for a company.
Given the demand for supply chain talent, the dearth of experienced talent, and an increasing number of newly graduated talent entering the job market, how do you make sure you extend an offer to the right person? Here are a few tips on hiring the right supply chain employee.
Look within the company
Is there someone within your organization who would thrive in a new role — even if the role is outside of their current field?
Look across the industry
Look at your competitors’ employees and identify individuals who are a good match to your company and the role.
Look outside the industry
A talented professional from outside the industry could provide fresh ideas and insight that would greatly benefit your company. Look for someone with transferrable skills and a willingness to learn a new industry.
Work with colleges and universities
Develop a relationship with colleges and universities. Work with the schools to identify upcoming or recent graduates who are/were stars. Another option is to establish an internship program with a school.
Work with a strategic advisory firm
Working with a strategic advisory firm is an option, as well. This type of partnership, such as the ones I build with our clients, can make identifying the right talent for the right position easier. An advisory firm often has the pulse on where the most talented people are in the supply chain and logistics industries. The firm can launch a successful candidate-search process, get new hires up and running, and help retain talent for the long run.
Be creative and have vision
Throughout the hiring process remember that creativity and vision are key.
Offer an out
Zappos pays new employees to quit. You read that right: The company pays new employees to quit their jobs. Once new employees have completed a 4-week training program, they can choose to remain with the company or quit. If they choose the latter, they walk out the door with a $4,000 bonus. Offering such an out may seem crazy. But the reality is that when unhappy employees leave the company within their first four weeks of employment, the financial implications are much, much lower than the cost of unhappy employees who are likely to be uninspired at work and quit in less than a year.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Sep 8, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy
Stop wasting your team’s time by implementing these tips for running more effective meetings.
Let’s face it: Meetings can suck. A poorly planned and executed meeting is a waste of time and money, and it can be demoralizing. Meetings shouldn’t be like this. Here are nine tips on how to plan and how to run an effective meeting.
1. Define purpose
Every meeting should have a purpose. Meetings are often set up to happen on a recurring basis. The reality is that many times these meetings take place solely because they are in our calendars. If there is no reason to hold the weekly meeting this Wednesday, cancel it.
2. Focus
Have a clearly defined, singular focus. This keeps the meeting on track. If a meeting has more than one focus, it is likely that one issue will be covered in far greater detail than the other, that the meeting will get off track, and/or none of the issues will be adequately addressed.
3. Prepare
Do your homework. Prior to every meeting, make sure you have read anything you should have read, and that you have completed any tasks that you should have completed. Additionally, know the lay of the land. For example, if the meeting is about the company budget and your employees are anxious over budget cuts, be prepared to address your employees’ anxieties.
4. Invite
It sounds simple but bears repeating: Invite those who should attend, and do not invite people who should not be there. For example, if the focus of the meeting is sales, make sure you invite the sales team. Or, if the focus of the meeting is the performance of your HR team, don’t invite your research and development team.
5. Leverage technology
Technology abounds, and you should utilize it. Getting everyone in the same room is no longer necessary. Take advantage of technology such as Speek, Skype, and GoToMeeting.
6. Communicate
An effective meeting is not a place for you to download or transfer information. If you present information in a manner that speaks to attendees, you will motivate your employees and create buy-in. (The Heart of Change, by Jon Kotter and Dan Cohen, is a great resource on effective communication.)
7. Time management
Create an agenda and stick to it. Start the meeting on time, and end the meeting on time. A meeting that is scheduled for 10:00-11:00 should not run from 10:15 to 11:15. Furthermore, if a meeting is scheduled for 1 hour, the meeting should last one hour or less. There is no need to try and fill the last 15 minutes if the agenda has been covered.
8. Facilitate
A meeting needs a leader. If it is your meeting, lead it. Leading does not mean speaking at people for an hour; instead it means facilitating the agenda. If an important but off-topic issue is raised during the meeting, don’t allow the meeting to go off on a tangent. Instead, acknowledge the importance of the issue and establish a time to address the particular issue. Handled correctly, your employees will not view this as blowing off their input, but rather they will value the fact that you will allot the necessary time to the issue.
Facilitating the meeting also means not allowing one person to monopolize the meeting. Give everyone the opportunity to provide input, and speak up if the agenda is being hijacked.
9. Action
At the end of the meeting review the action items. Make sure the right people are in charge of each item, that they know what they need to do, and that they know when the task needs to be completed.
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by Fronetics | Sep 7, 2016 | Big Data, Blog, Data/Analytics, Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chain
While the temptation to invest in big data may be strong, small and mid-sized companies might be better off starting with small, more manageable analytics.
Big data has become a big business. A 2016 Forrester report forecasts that the big-data management business will grow by 12.8% by 2021. It’s easy to see why, with the prevalence of stories from brands like Wamart and Rolls Royce that have perfected the science of capitalizing on detailed insights about customer behavior.
But many organizations — particularly small to mid-sized companies — are learning that big data does not always equate to big payoffs. In fact, many organizations have sunk millions of dollars into sophisticated data-analytics software only to realize they don’t have the capabilities to interpret the new insights nor the expertise to turn them into a competitive advantage.
Big data and the supply chain
Companies within the logistics and supply chain industries aren’t immune to this trend. An Accenture survey of more than 1,000 supply chain executives found that 84% have already employed big-data analytics or are in the latter stages of planning to do so. Respondents reported:
- 17% have implemented analytics in one or more supply chain functions.
- Three out of 10 have an active initiative to implement analytics in 6-12 months.
- More than one-third (37%) were engaged in serious conversations about implementation.
The promising applications of big data and how it might “revolutionize” the supply chain are hard to ignore. Increased efficiency across the supply chain, improved forecasting, better cost control, more accurate inventory planning: the list of benefits go on and on. These could lead to a significant advantage for companies with the expertise, structure, and knowledge to collect, analyze, and draw strategy cues from large sets of raw data.
But, again, small and mid-sized companies usually aren’t well positioned to do so, unfortunately.
Instead, start small
Supply chain and logistics organizations that don’t have such capabilities — or the capital to invest in technology that can do it for them — should start small instead. Even if you eventually want to implement a big-data strategy, there is a long-term benefit to gleaning insight from small data sets in the interim.
Here are some steps for getting started:
1) Determine your goals
Consider your business objectives and how you can leverage data to further your goals. Focus on just one or two areas for improvement, and clearly articulate what kinds of data you want to collect as they relate to those objectives.
2) Identify your sources
From where will you collect your data? Analyzing numerous data sets from a variety of sources will leave your head spinning and you none the wiser. Also determine which metrics will be most helpful to you, and which you can set aside.
3) Pick your people
If your company doesn’t have in-house analytics expertise, work to attract the appropriate talent. Regardless, integration and structuring of analytic personnel positions will be a more significant factor in your success than your use of even the most advanced statistical software program.
4) Master reporting
Finally, spend some time determining how your findings should be presented. You’ll want them to be formatted in a clear, digestible manner with a clear application for how they will improve your business.
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by Fronetics | Sep 6, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Your customers use vendor content in their purchasing decisions, and you need a strategy to reach them — or your competitors will.
Content marketing can be a game-changer, in terms of new business and sales revenue, for organizations of all sizes and industries and levels of marketing savvy. But you can’t just set up a blog and a few social media accounts and expect sales numbers to start shooting through the roof.
The truth is, your potential customers consider vendor content in the purchasing process. If you don’t have a data-driven content marketing strategy to attract their business, you’ll lose them to your competitors.
Sometimes, the numbers say it best. Here are 12 content marketing strategy statistics that underscore the importance of developing a clear content marketing strategy to advance your business goals.
12 content marketing strategy statistics
Your customers want content.
95% of B2B buyers are willing to consider vendor-related content as trustworthy. (DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
47% of B2B buyers consume 3-5 pieces of content prior to engaging with a salesperson. (DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
51% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make B2B purchasing decisions than they did a year ago. (DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
Type of content buyers have used in the past 12 months to make B2B purchasing decisions:
- White Papers (82%)
- Webinars (78%)
- Case studies (73%)
- eBooks (67%)
- Blog posts (66%)
- Infographics (66%)
- Third-party/Analyst reports (62%)
- Video/Motion graphics (47%)
- Interactive presentations (36%)
(DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
It’s important to clearly define your strategy and goals.
Content marketing effectiveness increases with:
- Experience (64% of experienced marketers say they are effective)
- A documented content marketing strategy (48%)
- A documented editorial mission statement (49%)
- Organizational clarity on what content marketing success looks like (55%)
- Daily or weekly content marketing meetings (41%)
(Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs)
Only 13% of those who do not document their strategy feel their content marketing is effective. (Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs)
Your strategy should clearly define your target audience and their needs.
96% of B2B buyers say content that speaks directly to their company is the single-most influential aspect of a vendor’s website. (Demand Gen 2016 B2B Buyer’s Survey Report)
What makes content most effective?
- Audience relevance (58%)
- Engaging and compelling storytelling (57%)
- Triggers a response/Action (54%)
(LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)
Your competitors are using content to win over potential customers.
88% of B2B organizations in North America use content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs)
75% of marketers are increasing investment in content marketing. (Curata)
79% of logistics and supply chain companies consider content as an effective tool for their business. (Fronetics)
The marketing software market is expected to grow to more than $32.3 billion in 2018. (IDC)
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