TV & Digital advertising need not be mutually exclusive. They often complement each other.

Audience fragmentation is a truism in media today. 30 years ago, the Internet was not widely available and cable was in its infancy. The legacy broadcast networks, like CBS, commanded a much larger share of the audience. In the last 30 years (but especially in the most recent 15 years), we’ve seen a proliferation of media channels coming into play, forcing brands to be more aware of content distribution so as to reach their target audience. Brands need to be in multiple places for top of mind brand awareness and fostering the positive brand beliefs that ultimately lead to increased sales and revenue.

We realize that many of the brands that we interact with in our key industries set aside budget to advertise on TV. Each company has their own perspective and their own goals. Some see TV as a key fit based upon their goals and financial picture. TV and digital work best as an integrated function. A TV campaign can boost outcomes in the social media space, which is a key part of multi-channel marketing. Using print campaigns that are also aligned with messaging being used on TV is part of integrated, holistic marketing communications.

In all channels, what matters most is the content created. Without compelling content, brand created messaging on TV, in the social space, in email, on websites, video and in print is not going to cut it. But compelling content is really a prerequisite in marketing campaigns. Advanced marketing is dependent upon how well a brand uses the various channels. Multi-channel distributed marketing automation software is designed for the purpose of having more effective use of marketing channels. More effective use of marketing channels is usually measured by reduced cost, and increased customer acquisition and/or retention, which creates more revenue. The combination of more revenue and less cost is something that looks pretty on a financial statement.

How brands get those pretty achievements is intriguing. There are numerous feature functions within the platform, but lead evaluation through detailed tracking & reporting is one of the key features, as well as reducing the time sales people spend on creating customization within their marketing messaging. More effective use of sales time is a recipe for success.

The multi-channel mix is a lot like snowflakes. No two multi-channel marketing efforts are exactly alike. While multi-channel campaigns have many of the same elements, they are often executed slightly differently as different companies weight the mix and channel utilization in different ways. The best idea is to use multiple channels to get a compelling message out there that frames brand beliefs in a positive light, creating an inducement for consumer purchase.

Distribion will be attending the 2013 Life Insurance Conference

The Life Insurance Conference* is right around the corner. We are only 5 days away from the start of the conference, which runs from April 15-17 in New Orleans.

This blog has had a number of posts in recent weeks that have been centered around the themes of the conference. For a quick recap, I’ve listed our specific posts below.

• The Low Interest Rate Dilemma
• Solving The Low Interest Rate Dilemma
• No Debate: A Need to Innovate & Differentiate

Social media will be touched upon some of the presentations at the show, including “E-Processing: From Application to Issue” and “Social Media is Mardi Gras Marketing”.

There is a lot that we have written about social media marketing in this space, and we will continue to be writing about it. I like the parallel between social media marketing and Mardi Gras. The conference brochure states that “The Mardi Gras mantra of social media communication of tweets, blogs, and articles must include entertainment value.”

Certainly that statement makes sense. Below is how I interpret that idea, which is slightly different. I place more value on the concept of fun over entertainment value.

Many people perceive Mardi Gras as a fun, festive environment. There’s a reason it draws huge crowds year after year. Meanwhile, social media can be known to be fun & festive if done correctly.

I’m a big believer that marketing should be fun. Last month, I wrote “Can Distributed Marketing Management Brands Have Fun With Their Ads?“. There were some examples of organizations in highly regulated industries taking the time to have fun with their ads. But every brand should find a way to have a fun component of their brand. Some product categories make it easier to define themselves as fun than others. For example, a brand of volleyballs could use imagery of a great day playing sand volleyball, and it is easier for them to be tied to fun than a life insurer. However, in a concerted effort, mostly every brand can find fun within their essence.

For those readers who are attending this conference, we look forward to seeing you there.

*-The Life Insurance Conference is supported by organizations like LIMRA, LOMA, SOA & ACLI.

The SEC is making it easier for companies to ride the social media wave.

Earlier this week, the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) released a report declaring that companies could use social media channels to communicate newsworthy events. A key caveat in this ruling is that companies have to disclose where they will be breaking key news items.

The SEC report highlights the pervasiveness of social media. As an institution, the SEC is not necessarily known to be on the cutting edge of marketing communication tactics. However, the SEC has observed that companies are turning more & more to social media to get messages out there as fast as possible. The key driver in the SEC ruling was a Netflix branding action. Last summer, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted on his personal Facebook page that the company had exceeded one billion hours of streaming video for the first time, a fact that had not been disclosed elsewhere prior to the Facebook status update. Mashable noted that the Facebook posting caused Netflix stock to rise.

One of the key takeaways from this SEC decision is that social media platforms have proliferated to a point where they are considered mainstream. In many circles, there is a sense that the most important information gets transmitted through social media. Think about your own personal life for a minute. Do you get key news about your social circle more from Facebook or Twitter updates or from one to one interpersonal means like in person visits or phone calls? In a lot of cases, social media is how people keep tabs on one another, for better or worse. Those in the investment space are often keeping tabs on publicly traded companies via social media. I perceive this as an idea related to communication theorist Marshall McLuhan’s idea that “The medium is the message” . I believe that the way in which we communicate a message affects how it is interpreted by a target audience, whether in business or in one’s personal life.

What does all of this mean for the marketing process?

I believe this event is part of a continuing pattern that is emphasizing digital marketing means. The more solidified a brand’s online presence is, the more well positioned that they are to succeed. There’s a greater expectation now of a more fully formed digital presence, and a fully formed digital presence could be perceived as a baseline for a brand to have a relationship with a customer. The baseline could be enough for certain brands. A typical consumer is not going to have a truly deep relationship with their toothpaste brand of choice. However, in industries where distributed marketing models are used, such as insurance and financial services, there is often an interpersonal interaction component to the producer-consumer relationship. That impacts the brand experience and would also serve to impact the way that the social media channel presence is perceived, due to greater context.

Online channels exist for people and for brands to more easily disseminate messages. Even though social media has become pervasive, the challenge of quality communications does not end due to ease of use. Brands face a greater challenge than ever in effectively distributing, optimizing and managing content across an ever expanding pool of digital channels. Marketing automation software is a key path that numerous brands have chosen as a resource to address this challenge. The brands that are able to address this challenge most effectively are the ones that will grow their amongst their target market and on their income statement.

Product innovation and differentiation are key building blocks for successful marketing.

One of the themes at this year’s Life Insurance Conference is product innovation and differentiation in a low interest rate environment. In any industry, there’s a need to innovate and differentiate. Brands that fail to do this risk a loss of relevance in the marketplace; more importantly, they risk negative consequences on the income statement. With life insurance, product offerings tend to be moderately complex. It’s not a product category like racquetballs or chicken wings. However, the relative complexity of the category allows for life insurance brands to create and market products that can broaden the marketplace and establish points of differentiation from one brand to another.

One of the sessions during the conference will be “Reaching the Elusive Middle Market”. I feel that this is a great idea for insurance brands, as the middle market offers some great opportunities. The middle market has been traditionally underserved in the life insurance category, as brands have typically focused efforts on more affluent households. LIMRA defines the middle market as households that have an income between $35,000-$100,000. In 2011, they estimated 35 million middle-market households were underinsured, although half of that group was considering the purchase or expansion of life insurance coverage. When half of people in a potential target market are inclined to view a product offering favorably, that is a terrific first step.

Chief concerns in the middle market are affordability of life insurance and making life insurance a priority purchase. There’s been a perception that life insurance is more costly than it is actually is. For brands, this represents an opportunity to develop marketing communications demonstrating that life insurance is more affordable than initially thought. News to consumers that is better than initially anticipated is always going to be well received. This ties in with making life insurance a priority purchase. Another perception that exists is that the middle market is financially squeezed, a perception that does have economic validity. If you’ve been consuming media from financial news sources (or even general news sources), there has been a lot of negative sentiment coming from the middle market. There have been employment issues, debt issues, housing market issues, etc. Considering the issues, one can understand why many brands have not made the middle market a priority.

It isn’t always good business sense to write off such a large segment of the market. But if there’s going to be an effort to reach an underserved market, it is an idea that will need buy in at all levels of the organization. A well known case of this approach comes from Unilever in the consumer products industry. A number of Unilever brands, particularly in emerging markets globally, have often been targeted towards people lower on the socioeconomic scale. While laundry detergent and life insurance are not entirely analogous product offerings, the corporate mindset issue is one of universal relevance. Some brands in the life insurance space are beginning to see wisdom in the idea of gaining market share in the middle. For example, there are 5 times as many households with incomes between $60,000-$150,000 in the US as households with over $150,000. Penetrating this segment of the market, if done in sizable quantity, has the potential to be financially lucrative for a brand.

In attempts to pursue the middle market, there will be some differences in the marketing approach. Multi-channel marketing (including email and social media marketing) will take on even greater relevance in the middle market. Brands will need to accelerate their abilities to effectively distribute, optimize and manage content across online channels. The brands that communicate their positive attributes of differentiation best across channels position themselves to be the most financially successful.

Low interest rates don’t have to sting.

On March 14th, I posted The Low Interest Rate Dilemma, which detailed how the current low interest rate environment is impacting the insurance industry. At the upcoming Life Insurance Conference, this is going to be a significant topic.

Low interest rates are affecting pricing, the price-value proposition of product offerings and a variety of corporate finance aspects of these companies. With regard to life insurance, some of the product offerings are rather complex financial instruments, but one commonality is that no matter how they are structured, they are negatively impacted by low interest rates. Generally, these policies invest policyholder premiums paid into bonds and other types of investment vehicles that pay minimal returns. That has the potential to pressurize the profit margins of the companies. Each company will have individual circumstances, but there is a collective sense of acknowledgement and concern about how to address the issue. With a great challenge, there comes great opportunity to create a beneficial solution.

There’s often no better way to get a company’s attention than through their finances. Numerous company initiatives are often examined when there’s a financial crunch. One of the areas where changes can be made is marketing. The marketing environment has gotten more complicated over the last two decades. According to the Distribion white paper “Email Evolution: The Times Are Changing”, the average newly minted marketing MBA in 1990 was only familiar with 10 marketing mediums. In more present times, the number of marketing channels that a marketing MBA would need to be familiar with expanded to 26, including a multitude of social and digital environments. In such a complex ecosystem, there’s a need for assistance. Assistance can come through the utilization of marketing automation. A marketing automation system, as a part of brand management software designed for a distributed marketing organization (often a structure found in insurance), does have the potential to provide a brand with greater cost containment.

Recent Distribion client survey data indicates the following cost containment results:

• 25% increase in marketing efficiencies
• 15% reduction in compliance costs
• 10% reduction in support/maintenance costs

Without focusing on generating new business, a company can improve their financial standing through use of the Distributed Marketing Platform. Without leveraging the solution, there could be a much greater need to generate new sales and in this low interest rate environment, there are challenges in that course. The Distributed Marketing Platform has had a proven track record in that area as well, so it can be a good fit for companies desiring an increase in new business.

Industry trends are relevant to the collection of companies within the space, and each company comes to the table with a different perspective. It’s important for companies to be keenly aware of what they can do to solve problems, such as the low interest rate dilemma. Multiple approaches can be taken, and what Distribion offers can help ease the pain of low interest rates.

Take note! Distributed Marketing Management Software is a key initiative for marketers.

Content distribution is a key concern for marketers. Recent research from Gleanster and the CMO Council has reinforced this notion. For instance:

• A significant percentage of companies are having difficulty finding balance between corporate marketing and local marketing efforts. Recent research from Gleanster noted that 93% of distributed marketing organizations cited the conflicting needs of local marketers and corporate marketing as one of the biggest challenges. CMO Council data indicates that 61% of marketers they surveyed felt that local customization of content would be a high priority during 2013. 
• Use of technology has corporate & local marketers at odds. Separate technologies being used at the corporate & local levels creates marketing inefficiencies that often put a drag on marketing outcomes. In highly regulated industries, too much local level customization can cause brand compliance issues, which can have monetary consequences. 
• Use of distributed marketing management software is a crucial factor for top performers. Gleanster observed that top performing companies were 7 times more likely to be utilizing distributed marketing management software.

These findings have not surprised Distribion. CEO Tim Storer said:

“Organizations have a huge content management and distribution challenge due to the proliferation of marketing channels. What we offer is a solution that streamlines and optimizes the marketing distribution process, maintains brand and corporate messaging requirements and provides valuable insight into all marketing activities.”

To Read More: http://www.prweb.com/releases/Distributed-Marketing/Marketing-Automation/prweb10549119.htm

Are low interest rates giving you a skidding off track feeling? It doesn’t have to be that way.

One of the biggest issues in the insurance industry at the moment is the low interest rate environment. It is manifesting itself in a wide variety of ways. The low interest rate environment could be around for a bit, as all indications are that the Federal Reserve intends to keep interest rates at 0% until around 2015.

Life insurance has been particularly hard hit by the low interest rate environment. Life insurance companies are cautious in their investments of premiums paid, investing in bonds and other types of investment vehicles that pay minimal returns. For example, US Treasury Bonds are paying an extremely low rate of return. Meanwhile, life insurance customers are often seeing their benefits cut, prices raised or they are not getting good returns on investment from annuities. Annuity sales as a whole have been reduced over time. No consumer likes to pay higher prices for reduced benefits. Part of the allure of insurance in a wide variety of areas is peace of mind, protection from calamity in times in need.

Granted, the concept of rising prices is not solely an insurance industry issue, but it is significant in insurance. Insurance Journal notes that commercial insurance prices rose 7% during the 4th quarter of 2012, marking the 8th consecutive quarter of price increases.  According to Tom Hettinger of Towers Watson, the price increases will push 2013 loss ratios down, which does help financial ratios.  One alternate strategy that can be pursued by insurers is to invest in riskier asset classes to keep benefits from being cut to policyholders. As previously mentioned, benefit cuts are an option, and following this option would be more closely aligned with the fast moving consumer goods approach to pricing. In a common FMCG approach, prices remain stable but sizes are cut. Tropicana is one example of a company who cut package size to stem rising prices.

Health insurance and long term care insurance have also been affected by low interest rates, which have been a contributing factor to rising prices, but these types of insurers are dealing with other issues as well.

Certain insurance companies have avoided taking on new business as they have determined that new business is not going to be as profitable. There’s been pressure throughout organizations to reduce costs to offset the hampering operating environment.

One thing is clear: the interest rate conundrum doesn’t appear to be going anywhere in the short term. Insurers are going to have to find creative and innovative ways to guide their brands to deliver maximum shareholder value. Where can an insurance brand go from here? There are options for insurers to consider and watch for updates to this blog to see this topic explained in more detail going forward.

Could this happen to your company with distributed marketing management software?

Distributed marketing management software has the potential to tremendously benefit an organization. But what are the benefits? What is the point of distributed marketing management software as a marketing automation solution?

Marketing automation works well in an organization that is structured via a distributed model. In a distributed model, there is corporate marketing structure that centralizes brand management. In essence, this does not differentiate a distributed model organization from a company like Procter & Gamble, the company that truly defined the modern concept of brand management back in the early 20th Century. Distributed marketing organizations would diverge from Procter & Gamble based on having a greater reliance upon localized sales agents to represent the brands. The distributed model is quite common in insurance and financial services.

The time that it takes to deliver a message consistently across channels has increased over time, due to the complexity of the modern marketing channel environment. This stands in contrast to the commonly held notion that the world is moving at a faster pace than it once did. Immediacy is a key component of the current era, and online marketing channels are contributing factors to the expectation of immediacy amongst many people.

Since there are more places for a brand to be, brands need to have a point of view that considers an approach to all channels. The basis of a lot of current marketing efforts is online. With every year that passes, more & more brands are moving more & more money and other resources out of traditional marketing means and into online means. But online is not a one size fits all model. With online marketing, there is social media (and each social media network has its own distinct feel), email marketing, search engine marketing and optimization, and a website/microsite presence. While it might sound simple in a sentence, there’s a lot to each of these topics. Many books/ebooks containing hundreds of pages have been written on each of these marketing channels.

When complexity arises, so does the need for processes. Automation works to simplify processes. Simple is good. That’s one of the key ideas of marketing in general. And when the marketing communications process is humming along, it means that multiple elements of the mix are working harmoniously together. Distribion’s social media marketing automation web based software solution is a key part of that. Corporate marketers can create social media campaigns across the wide variety of social media channels, and their downstream local sales agent partnerships can simply opt in to the essence of the campaign. This serves as a solution for the local agent, who often loses quality sales time while working on the development and presentation of marketing collateral. A distributed marketing software solution is vital in aligning human talents to focus their efforts on what they do best. A marketing and human resource alignment through strategic software enhances productivity, and as a result, often times top line financial performance is positively affected. Gleanster was one company to put forth research to support the previous sentence, stating that organizations that use distributed marketing software are more likely to be top performers relative to their competition. And isn’t that the point of being in business? Business is a lot like competitive athletics in the sense that there’s the innate desire to achieve peak performance relative to key benchmarks.

Who will you find on the social networks? Help managing this complex world is available.

If your brand is not maintaining a strong presence on the major social networks at a bare minimum, your brand is missing great opportunities to achieve greater success. The majority of online Americans used social media in 2012, according to the Pew Center’s Internet & American Life Project published last week. 67% of all Internet users are using at least one social media site (including 71% of women), and amongst those 18-29, 83% use. The Pew report measured social media activity on 5 social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr).

Certainly there’s some overlap, as there are many people who use 2 or more social networks. The user profile on each of the individual social networks varies. But when you are making decisions on where to be, the most important place to be for the majority of brands is going to be Facebook. This is illustrated well through the statistical mirror reflection of Facebook usage to usage of one social media site. Both figured registered at 67%. This does not mean that other platforms should be ignored, but rather it speaks to the potency of the Facebook brand and its ability to maintain a desirable user experience.

The primary trend observed on Facebook is that users tend to be reasonably young, female, more affluent and more likely to live to in a urban environment. 72% of women who responded to the survey indicated Facebook usage, as compared to 62% of men.

The younger you are, the more likely you are to be on Facebook, but all age groups under 65 are more likely to be on Facebook than not. Here are the user stats broken down by age:

• 86% of those 18-29
• 73% of those 30-49
• 57% of those 50-64
• 35% of those 65+

The most common educational attainment of Facebook users was Some College (73%), followed by College Grad or Higher (68%). Since Facebook usage is very high amongst young users, a big portion of those 18-29 Some College users (especially 18-25) are going to be current college students, many of whom will be college graduates within 1-4 years. This factor was not explicitly stated in the Pew Center report. But generalized knowledge about the cohort of 18-29 year olds as of Dec 2012 (born 1983-1994) is that they commonly have pursued higher education at rates higher than members of prior generational cohorts.

Higher household income was a relevant factor in Facebook usage. By household income, usage stats are:

• 73% of those above $75,000 HH income
• 69% of those between $50,000-$74,999 HH income
• 62% of those between $30,000-$49,000 HH income
• 68% of those below $30,000

With regard to household income, factors that were not examined is marital status and composition of household. For example, a 29 year old single woman who makes $80,000 per year lives a very different lifestyle than a 27 year old man earning $45,000 per year and 25 year old woman earning $35,000 who live together and have no children. Likewise, both of the aforementioned living arrangements would differ from an early to mid 50s dual income earning household with combined household income over $100,000  with a recent college graduate living at home who is unemployed or underemployed in a low wage service sector job, a common arrangement given recent employment statistics for new college grads.

In 2009, Harvard Business Review released a great article about the power of the female economy. In industries like insurance and financial services, there would be great relevance to this Facebook data. Female consumers often make budgetary decisions in households, regardless of the composition of the household. Particularly with women in urban settings, who quite commonly use Facebook, it is important to create marketing messages that will resonate with this cohort. There are various insurance products and services that will be applicable, as well as financial service products and services. The organizations that best craft messages to this cohort, regardless of medium, will be best positioned for success going forward.

Twitter is the secondly most common used social network amongst the social networks evaluated in the Pew Center report. Only 16% of those surveyed have a Twitter presence, and the gender split is near equal. Urban residents were more commonly on Twitter. Twitter usage did not vary drastically amongst various types of educational attainment levels and household incomes, a marked difference from Facebook. African Americans and Hispanics more commonly used Twitter than White, Non Hispanics. The aforementioned sentence also applied to Instagram usage. The Pew Center report did not offer a break down of Facebook users by race.

Amongst the other networks evaluated (Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr), there were not many major surprises. Pinterest data reaffirms its reputation as a hub for female activity. Pinterest was equally popular with 18-29 as 30-49 females. White, Non Hispanic women were the most common racial classification amongst Pinterest users and Pinterest users were more likely to have a Bachelor’s Degree or higher.

One of the biggest shortcomings of the Pew Center report is that amongst social networks evaluated, the report did not take YouTube, LinkedIn or Google Plus participation into consideration. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine after parent company Google, and YouTube has a significant social component. It is a mistake not to have a YouTube presence. Even those without YouTube accounts are often watching videos on YouTube. There’s tremendous awareness and knowledge of it. LinkedIn is the hub of business networking conversation and B2B brands should be around the site. Google Plus has a place in the social networking conversation. It is also important to note that there are numerous other niche social networks that may have relevance depending upon a brand’s marketing objectives.

What is most apparent from this report is that there’s a greater number of places for any brand marketer to be. It is truly a multi-channel marketing environment. When there are multiple places to be at one time, there’s a greater need for marketing automation software, best utilized in the form of a Distributed Marketing Management solution. Without automation, marketing processes take more time, decreasing efficiency and puts a brand at greater risk for making a social media mistake. Social media mistakes have consequences, but there are also consequences for not maintaining a presence on social media sites. As a brand, it is vital to be where your target market is, and social media is one of the greatest conduits for achieving that, and reaping the financial rewards that can happen in an optimized social media presence.

Thumbs up to Distribution for a quality 2012.

Distribion, a leading provider of marketing automation software, had numerous accomplishments in 2012. The company is also looking forward to making 2013 just as much of a quality year as 2012 was.

One thing that can be perceived as quite impressive was the fact that Distribion was named by the Metroplex Technology Business Council as the 4th fastest growing company in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Considering that the Dallas-Fort Worth area is routinely touted for being economically dynamic and performing well relative to the United States as a whole, this is a quality achievement.

But Distribion does not intend to become complacent as the company strongly believes there are great opportunities in the marketplace. Analysts in the SaaS space have estimated the value of marketplace for distributed marketing software to be worth approximately $2 Billion. There’s a belief that the company is uniquely positioned within the market and this positioning will benefit the long term outlook of the company.

CEO Tim Storer noted:

“Organizations have a huge content management and distribution challenge due to the proliferation of marketing channels. What we offer is a solution that streamlines and optimizes the marketing distribution process, maintains brand and corporate messaging requirements and provides valuable insight into all marketing activities.”

In recent times, there have been some improvements to the Distributed Marketing Platform, which include:

• An integration with Litmus, which is a program that tests email delivery and the appearance of emails within numerous email platforms. This is intended to further improve email marketing campaigns, which already are one of of the most effective marketing channels.
• More in depth integration with SalesForce.com, augmenting sales agent productivity and Jaspersoft Big Data Reporting integration, providing key analytic measurements.
• Various new API capabilities that support rule based campaign and data triggers

The improvements in the Distributed Marketing Platform will enable companies to more effectively manage marketing communications, a key tenet of brand management.  This is certainly an exciting development from the standpoint of Distribion client companies and prospective client companies.

To Read More: Distributed marketing software provider, Distribion, reports record growth: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/2/prweb10451554.htm

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