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There are lots of words in marketing.  Strategy, objectives, vision, goals etc. , but what is really required for marketing to be successful? One of my managers, a few years back explained this by saying, “there are five key questions, to which you always need to have the answer,  and if you do, it will help you to be successful  marketer”. These five questions, permanently stuck into my mind are:

• Do you know the size of the market, customer segments, customer buying cycles and the your current position in the market?
• Do you have clear priorities?
• Does your plans align with, and reflect the goals of the sales organization?
• Are there clear measures of success and failure?
• Do you have a vision of the most outstanding growth opportunity?

Capitalizing on social media, the latest gold rush, marketers and managers afraid of being left behind, are scrambling to set up their company facebook pages, tweats, YouTube channels to satisfy then demands of their executives. But, is it really working, and worth while all the efforts? Why should a company spend all this time and effort on something that can’t be easily measured and may or may not generate any return, when at the same time, traditional proven marketing tactics are starving for resources?

Here’s a few simple things to consider before you engage too deeply in social media .

First of all, every industry and it’s customers are different. What might work for some doesn’t work for others. Companies have to fish where the fish is. So, know your industry trends, your customers, their preferences, and any underlying changes. You also want to understand where on the participation continuum your customers are. Are they spectators, joiners, collectors, critics or contributors?

Secondly, think about what you’re trying to achieve with your marketing tactics. What is the outcome? The outcome will determine your actions. A good model to use is POST (people, objectives, strategy and tactics). There’s also some good research / models about what impact different social media channels have on Brand, Demand and Traffic. For example, bookmarks might generate a reasonable amount of traffic, but has a very small impact on brand or demand.

Thirdly, when you want to embark on social media keep in mind that there are hundreds and hundreds of options out there. Most people only know a few of the mainstream ones, such as facebook, but in a industrial B-2-B setting, participating in Yahoo discussion groups, Wikipedia,  Slide share, Plaxo etc. might be way more productive. One of the most under utilized tactic in B-2-B is WOM (word of mouth), which in many cases is one of the leading sources of information for customers.

And finally organize all your tactics into one  of four buckets, listening, talking, energizing or supporting. This will help to keep things straight thinking about what you’re trying to provide to your customers.

A while ago a created the attached customer value model. This model looks at all the influencers that a typical customer is faced with making a purchase decision. The model is probably generic enough to work for any B-2-B settings, but each industry / company has to figure out the relative importance and weight of each attribute presented.   Decision Making model