EMarketer put out an article Tuesday about what Americans want from brands. Their results give businesses some great knowledge points to think about when creating marketing campaigns. Stuff to keep in mind.

Two things that Americans want from brands:

1. Constant information and brand updates
2. Discounts!

When it comes to buying, Americans look more positively on word of mouth than any other advertising strategy. The data even showed that Americans will be more likely to buy when they are told face to face about a brand than in an online community, which is fascinating considering the amount of time we all spend on our social networks and online personas.

But, in the same realm, people are also far more likely to trust bloggers and social media contacts who they read or follow regularly about brands, than celebrities or news reps (keep that in mind when looking for people to pitch a product).

So how do you implement new strategies knowing this information? Does this information change who you are going to connect with in the future, and the strategy you will use to implement brand announcements?

Connecting with customers is getting harder. Marketing and sales has been making dramatic shifts in the past few years as traditional ad strategies become more and more obsolete, and those changes are going to have to continue in the months and years to come.

(Photo With a Little Help From My Friends by Herodoto)

There are tons of great books on business, but to make this easy, I’m offering my top five intriguing reads. Give them a skim!

1. Purple Cow, By Seth Godin: Seth Godin’s new book, Purple Cow is about transforming your business by being remarkable.
2. How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie: “There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything,” writes Carnegie, “and that is by making the other person want to do it.”
3. The Art of the Start, by Guy Kawasaki: What does it take to turn ideas into action? What are the elements of a perfect pitch? How do you win the war for talent? How do you establish a brand without bucks? These are some of the issues everyone faces when starting or revitalizing any undertaking, and Guy Kawasaki, former marketing maven of Apple Computer, provides the answers.
4. Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, by Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg: Twenty-five years ago, Herb Kelleher reinvented air travel when he founded Southwest Airlines, where the planes are painted like killer whales, a typical company maxim is “Hire people with a sense of humor,” and in-flight meals are never served–just sixty million bags of peanuts a year.
5. Your Marketing Sucks, by Mark Stevens: When Mark Stevens’ bestselling book, “Your Marketing Sucks,”hit the bookstores, Entrepreneurs and CEO’s across the globe called Stevens and said, “My marketing sucks – I need your help!” Why? Because the only effective marketing is marketing that SELLS!

(Photo My Favorite Bookshop by Lochaven)

At last week’s Sales 2.0 conference, Gerhard Gschwandtner, (@gerhard20) the founder and CEO of Personal Selling Power, started off discussing seven trends that are driving the shift in the way buyers choose to buy.  The first trend was “Conversation Economy – buyers want to talk to each other, not necessarily you.”

As we’ve discussed before, this is no surprise as people have been sharing information with each other in our consumer lives for years.  With businesses and professionals now getting more involved in social networking, access to a solution provider’s other customers is becoming much easier in B2B.  The solution providers are no longer the gate keepers of this information. 

While prospects and customers definitely look to their solution providers for information and education, they will always want to hear from other customers on the actual experience and performance of the relationship.  And what they hear will have an impact on their future decisions. 

Companies that foster and help build these relationships in order to stay involved in the discussions on their brand and get candid feedback from customers will do well.  Those that believe building a wall between the company and customer interaction will find that they’re throwing money away in taking on an impossible task.  If there are major concerns within your company about customers and prospects talking openly about your brand, management’s time will be better spent addressing the things you’re worried they’ll talk about instead of trying to stop them from talking.

As Customer-to-Customer (C2C) and Customer-to-Prospect (C2P) interactions continue to grow, Sales, Marketing, and Product Management groups will be much better off accepting and nurturing these relationships then pretending they don’t exist.

This week I was asked by someone if I thought the management of social media should fall under the Marketing group or the Sales group.  The debate being that most companies use social media to build their brand online (marketing) with the goal of connecting with prospects that then contact said social media accounts wanting to learn more about the product or service (sales). There were concerns that while the majority of what they wanted to do via social media fell under the standard marketing umbrella; they wanted a sales person involved when a prospect reached out.

Long story short, the answer is your social media presence is a combination of both.

For small businesses, this really never seems to be much of an issue because there are few people wearing many hats and usually all sitting right next to each other.

For larger businesses, a strong relationship between Marketing and Sales with a lead generation plan in place is just as important online as it is offline.  Social media doesn’t really change that.  However it does make it publicly and blatantly obvious when the teams are siloed and disjointed.  Mismanaging a customer or prospect on Twitter can lead to a huge public black eye that thousands of people can share and talk about whereas not contacting a lead that filled out your Contact Us form is a much more private mistake.  That’s why having a social media strategy in place is crucial for companies regardless of what group it falls under.

Figure out what your goals are for using social media and how you will measure your success first.  Then plan the tactics that will allow you to reach those goals.  The last and easiest part will be determining who handles it.

Anyone selling to businesses knows that the hardest part is getting on the short list.  Once you’re on that list, you can normally find out who you’re up against and position your team and solution appropriately to win the business.

But if you’re a small to mid-size business, how do you earn your way on to that short list when you’re competing with the larger players with the big brands and bigger marketing budgets?  Here are some budget-agnostic tips that can help you get there.

1. Be out there.

No matter how good your product or service is, if you’re not out there, nobody will know about you.  It’s up to you to be found and not up to your prospects to find you.  Taking the following steps can really make a difference in getting noticed:

• Optimize your site for search engines with the appropriate keywords that will bring you the most relevant traffic.
• Join the appropriate social networks and groups that your customers participate in.
• Attend relevant events, both online and offline.
• Add your site and blog to any and all relevant directories. (Almost all are free to do so.)
• Advertise where the ROI is worth it.

You’ll notice the key word in most of these tasks is “relevant”.  Surprisingly, many businesses hear about using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc and just blindly join and start using it without a real plan.  There are millions of people on these platforms and it’s important to know where your prospects are and how they interact on each platform.  Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time.

2. Consistently post to your blog.

A prospect always wants to know that their vendors are experts and know what they are talking about.  One of the best ways to do this is through your company blog.  In addition to posting helpful content, the other key factor to a successful blog is posting on a consistent basis.  It’s much better to post twice a week consistently on a Tuesday and Thursday then have five posts one week and one post the next.  Your customers can also mistakenly assume that since you haven’t posted anything in a month, business must not be doing so well.  Find the frequency that works for you and stick with it.

3. Help more, sell less.

The key to using social media, or any other form of social interaction for that matter, is to help more and sell less.  Everyone remembers someone that offers to help them.  How many remember (or want to remember) somebody that just sells to them?  The nice part about social media is that by adding a helpful comment or sharing advice or experience on your blog, you have the opportunity to help thousands instead of just one or two people.

4. Connect with the trendsetters and experts.

Your prospects will always find the trendsetters in an industry and always look to the experts whether they’re analysts, industry journal writers, or the power bloggers for that industry.  Do everyone a favor and try to connect with them as soon as possible and build a relationship.  The worst thing that can happen is that these people offer you tips on how to make your application or service better in order to compete with others.  The best case is that they love your solution and promote it in their writings and on their sites.  In regards to trendsetters, finding another company in your area but that offers a different/complimentary service is the optimal situation.  Not only can you learn from one another but you can also promote one another without fear of competing.

5. Build your word-of-mouth.

You have a great product or service and your customers love it.  Are you letting anyone else know?  When you have a great solution and customers that love it the first thing you should do is put that word-of-mouth into as many different forms as possible.  Ask them to enter ratings and reviews on relevant review sites and directories.  Make a case study that explains how your customer benefited from using your product.  Add referrals from key customers to your site.  Prospects may only give your company and site one look.  It’s important to have this information where as many people can see it as soon as possible.

I hope you find these tips helpful.  If you have any of your own to add, please feel free to comment.

Photo: “Picking Team” by jenandjon on Flickr