Paul Gillin and I talk to Dermot O’Connor who is the VP of product and co-founder of Boxever, a marketing big data automation company. We discuss the changing nature of customer experience (CX) and how the rise of the online world of Google, Amazon and Facebook have changed customer expectations about their interactions with suppliers. Big data is essential to improvement for marketers. We also cover the differences between these two approaches and how difficult it is to incorporate the technology solutions that are required to implement the best CX, and how marketing departments need to get a handle on what data they have about their customers too.

Dermot offers his suggestions for how to create “Micro Moments” along the journey, a concept introduced in this Google blog. That’s about making each touch point with customers a part of crafting the best experience. O’Connor thinks the next phase of CX will center around micro-design and suggests ways in which himbrands can bring micro moments to life.

You can listen to our 12 min. podcast here:

It isn’t surprising that millennials are less satisfied with their jobs – given that they change them so frequently. Perhaps they have unrealistic salary or promotion expectations. This survey, the Data Snapshot: 2017 Career Outlook for Tech Marketers, of several hundred marketers from both the US and UK is worth looking at, not just because it points out generational differences but it also shatters some myths too.

Are vendors paying freelancers to place stories in reputable publications they write for? David Berlind thinks so. We describe what motivated him to post a complaint about how freelancers are double-charging for their stories, being paid by both a vendor client and their editors.

Next, Anindya Ghose’s Tap: Unlocking the Mobile Economy should be on every B2B marketer’s reading list for how to understand mobile ecommerce and mobile transactions. It is a rare book that provides solid research and is enjoyable to read. He shows that the balance between advertising and peer group recommendations for purchasing products and services is shifting to more of a mix, and this book will help guide marketers to understanding how to play that mix to their favor without alienating consumers. He covers the nuances of location-based advertising and how mobile phones access this information. B2B marketers have to get better at using mobile technologies. And the smartphone has become the glue between online and offline channels, so marketers need to understand how this glue is applied and how to become more effective at using it.

Finally, this post from Buffer (We Made These 10 Social Media Mistakes so Don’t Have To) is well worth reviewing. Many of us have made most of the mistakes on this list, and some of them are worth discussing with your social media team to try to prevent them in the future.

Listen to our podcast here:

This week Paul Gillin and I are guests on Shel Holtz’ For Immediate Release podcast.  We talk about these topics:

• In a follow-up to a report last week, a PR agency owner takes issue with the Center for Public Relations’ survey on the industry’s view of White House communications.
• Real estate site Zillow sent a cease-and-desist letter to a blogger who, it turns out, wasn’t violating their intellectual property at all. Still, there are lessons here for bloggers and companies.
• While media outlets are increasingly interested in data journalism, PR doesn’t seem to be pitching many data stories.
• A UK organization accidentally sent members an email telling them their passwords had been reset. That was just its first mistake.
• Voice search and smart audio are coming to the enterprise, which means it will have a place in the B2B world.
• Venture Capital CEO Dave McClure was outed in the New York Times for inappropriate behavior with a woman who was hoping to work for his company. He penned an apology. He should have done a few other things instead.
• Tech correspondent Dan York reports Instagram’s new anti-spam tools, Facebook’s penalties for people who post too many links, Alibaba’s plans to compete with Amazon’s Echo, and new widgets in WordPress 4.8.

You can listen to our hour-long podcast here.

There’s no shortage of people willing to bash bad PR practices, but we prefer to take a more positive tone. This week we speak with someone who does B2B PR very well.

Beth Winkowski has had her own PR firm for decades after working for leading edge tech companies back in the 1990s. Both Paul and I have had tremendous respect for her, not just for the quality of her communications but for the very skillful way in which she handles journalist relationships. She sends out press releases for all events announced by her clients but only asks for press briefings occasionally. Both Paul and I know that when Beth asks for a briefing, the announcement is important. Her clients are well prepared, with PowerPoint decks that explain but don’t overwhelm. She sends a confirmation the morning of the  call along with the final press release. She always includes graphics. These sound like small things, but it’s amazing how few agencies attend these small details.

When we first contacted Beth about being a guest, she demurred, saying that she only seeks publicity for her clients and not for herself. She has no website because she doesn’t want to appear to be promoting her own interests ahead of those of her clients. It’s these kinds of philosophical details that are important. Beth had a lot of wisdom to impart on our show, and while most of it is common sense, it is a reason why she is the consummate PR pro.

Listen to our 19 min. podcast here.

The “circular economy” is about more than just sustainability or preserving the environment. It’s a new economic model based upon the idea of maximizing the lifetime value of resources for as long as possible, whether through recycling, reuse or sharing. It’s a concept that underscores the growth of the so-called “sharing economy” and is paying benefits in the form of new product concepts and improved customer engagement.

The Conference Board recently published a report that defines the circular economy and offers examples of how it’s changing the way some businesses work. Thomas Singer (left), who authored the report, joins Paul Gillin and I to summarize its findings and discuss the long-term impact on businesses and marketers.

Thomas is a principal researcher in corporate leadership at The Conference Board and author of numerous publications, including “Driving Revenue Growth through Sustainable Products and Services” and the comprehensive corporate sustainability benchmarking report “Sustainability Practices.”  You can listen to our 19m podcast here:

We all love to carp about trade shows, so this time we thought we’d take a different approach and highlight some of the noteworthy moments over our many years of covering and speaking at them. David has just been to two different shows in Orlando last month and compares how they were run and what he learned. Paul has been to many vendor-focused shows over the years and offers some of his perspective. The best shows all have this in common:

• Solid speakers that have compelling stories, often drawn from the end-user community. We realize that some shows are run for profit and sell sponsorships (that often include a speaking “slot”). Still, the better speakers will always generate more buzz, coverage, and attendee response. These speakers aren’t afraid of telling tales that have a mixture of positive and negative experiences from the vendor’s products.
• The smaller, more vendor-driven shows will collect the faithful and boosters, no need to amplify or over-sell this.
• User-run shows, such as from VMware and Terradata, are often better than those that are vendor-run.
• Having executives who “give good interview” is key: not all of them can (even with some training) do this.
• PR teams who know what reporters like and tailor their schedules accordingly, rather than set up too many “meet-n-greets” that keeps us off the show floor.

Speaking of bad PR, Paul ends our episode with a tale of woe about one PR person who admitted that a news item was over a year old. Telling the truth is always a good operating philosophy.
Listen to the 18m podcast here:

In this week’s FIR B2B podcast, Paul Gillin and I cover four different stories that show the evolution of online news and PR, with some lessons for B2B marketers. We first examine the announcement about a new $14 million initiative to combat declining trust in the news media and advance news literacy. It will be called the News Integrity Initiative and be administered by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in NYC. It will comprise a global coalition of tech leaders, academic institutions, nonprofits and funders, including Facebook, Mozilla, Edelman and Weber Shanwick PR firms, Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales and Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark. Certainly, something on this level is needed desperately.

A promising story comes from the Washington Post, that covered the situation with a high school student newspaper that brought about the firing of their principal last month. The students, from a small town in Kansas, investigated the principal and found she faked her credentials. Good for them!

Everyone is taking about the United video of a passenger being dragged off a flight. While we can’t be entirely sure of the timeline, what we do note is how long it took United’s CEO Oscar Munoz to finally apologize and offer the passengers on that flight a refund for their trouble. Too bad PRWeek had already named him its “Communicator of the year.”  Timing is everything. Still, we point to this piece for corporate PR pros:  Why “Sorry” Is Still the Hardest Word with some solid lessons on how to gracefully apologize during a crisis.

Finally, there is the mess that YouTube is in with showing ads on racist and other objectionable videos. Advertisers such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Dish Network are pulling their ads rather than take a chance that their brands would be tarnished.  The WSJ and The Verge have covered this story recently and Google is trying to develop new automated methods to at least distinguish objectionable content and give advertisers more control over where their ads appear. Given that 400 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, an automated method is absolutely essential. 

Listen to our 16 minute podcast here.