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B2B Marketing Success Stories: Breaking Through the Clutter
As B2B marketers, we hear a lot about the problems, challenges and hardships we face. Do you ever wonder ‘where are the success stories?’ Us too. Along with the BMAMN, we’re excited to help share what’s working in the B2B marketing space right here in our backyard. Our own Director of Interactive Marketing, Rebecca Ramsden, will be facilitating a panel discussion with other Minnesota marketing leaders from Deluxe, Alignex, Salo and Turck. The panelists will share their successes and reveal how they did it – and how you can too. Are you on Twitter? You can follow them here: Cameron Potts – VP Public Relations, Deluxe – @campotts Nicole Yager – Director of Marketing, Alignex – @nicoleyager Maureen Sullivan – Director of Marketing, Salo – @mesullivan9 Chris Vitale – Director of Marketing, TURCK – @chris_vitale SmartBase Solutions – @SmartBaseMN (Shameless plug) Who is this event for? Marketing professionals in B2B companies who are looking for creative and effective content marketing techniques that will help their message to stand above the rest. Details: Success Stories: Breaking Through the Clutter August 4, 2015 – 7:30 to 9:30 am Breakfast | Presentation | Q&A | Networking Metropolitan Ballroom & Clubroom Register today to learn what successful Minnesota businesses are doing with video, storytelling, […]
Apple, Taylor Swift and Customer Loyalty
I won’t give you the entire backstory between Apple and Taylor Swift. You can read that here. I’ll just refer to the bones of the story. Taylor Swift didn’t agree with a decision made by Apple and she did what a lot of people do: She shared her thoughts about it with her followers on social media. On Sunday morning she wrote a letter to Apple on Tumblr, a popular blogging social network, and it was ‘hearted’ by 70k+ of her extremely loyal fans. It was also picked up by several news sites you may have heard of, like the NY Times, Forbes, and Fortune. As an influencer with millions of fans all over the world that are waiting intently to hear/see what she is saying and doing next, it’s obviously advisable to listen when Taylor has a gripe. Especially because Taylor is known for using her influencer power to speak for those whose voices aren’t often heard. Not everyone has Taylor’s status, but companies should treat each of their customers as if they were Taylor-sized influencers. And I’m going to tell you why. Are you listening? Now a disheartening statistic brought to you by Sprout Social: 5 out of every 6 attempts to interact with a brand on […]
SmartBase Office Relocation: We’re Moving to North Loop!
Over the last 6 months, we’ve been focused on what we want the future to look like for SmartBase. We created a ‘Big Data’ offering that we’re calling Analytic Platform Solutions (APS). Adding this expertise to the SmartBase portfolio will be crucial for our customers in the next few years. The amount of data being created by your customers and your company is growing exponentially – We want you to be able to actually USE it! With more great offerings came the need for additional talented people to execute these services for clients like you. So we hired the best and now we are feeling a little bit squished in our current office space. The new space Our new office search started in St. Louis Park, Northeast Minneapolis and the North Loop. We narrowed it down to several options and then let every employee vote on where they’d like to work. In the end, the majority chose North Loop and we’re very excited to be moving! The new office is located in the Internet Exchange Building at 411 Washington Ave N. It was built in 1913 and the first tenant was the Studebaker Brothers manufacturing company. They used this building to assemble horse-drawn buggies and used the railroad behind the building to ship them […]
The Woman’s Club of Minneapolis Welcomes a New President
“Individual commitment to a group effort–that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” – Vince Lombardi I love that quote. In leading my businesses over the last 10 years, I’ve found that living and breathing this concept is effective for success. I believe that the whole is only as good as the sum of its parts and when the individual is committed to the group, the end result is stronger. After the last year serving as President Elect, May 1st marked the official start of my Presidency at the Woman’s Club of Minneapolis. I’m both excited and anxious to be at the helm of the club because I know that inspiring member commitments, as I mentioned above, will create a stronger organization. Thinking about how far the club has come in the last 10 years has helped me determine a clear vision for its future. My main priority will be building the Woman’s Club into the epicenter of intellectual, social, and business stimulation in the Twin Cities area for women of all ages. My goal is to create a rich, invigorating environment; one where women can gather together, improve the community, network, […]
Give It Back: Putting Our Bodies to Use After Death
I’m a gardener. For nearly 40 years I’ve had my own garden and before that I helped my mother with hers. I’ve taken from and enriched the gardens I’ve worked with. It makes sense to me to give the last, best thing I have to the earth as I leave it; my body. Now, I’m in no hurry to leave, but I do understand that there’s an opportunity that comes from death. We make room for new life and can repurpose one of our most valuable assets – our bodies. Today’s traditional burial, in a casket surrounded by cement or in a 2000 degree fire, is a waste of our last gift to the world. The Business of Bodies: How did we get here? The World Health Organization estimates that by the year 2050, there will be two billion people who are over the age of 60. They also estimate that people over the age of 80 will have quadrupled by then. There’s going to be a lot of bodies. Numerous businesses have arisen over the past 100 years to attend to the needs of the dead and their loved ones. And experience that was once kept within the […]
8 Things We’re Looking Forward to at the Healthcare Marketing and Physicians Strategies Summit (#HMPS15)
We’re gearing up for the Healthcare Marketing & Physicians Strategies Summit next week. It’s almost here! This three day conference is packed with so much information they needed 3 separate tracks to get through it all! We’ll be attending sessions from Strategic Marketing to Customer Communication and Engagement to [our favorite] Analytics, Data and Measurement. We wanted to share all of the things we’re really looking forward to at HMPS15 but our list was way too long. For the sake of your precious time, we cut it down to these 8: 1. Yoga. It’s happening every morning before the sessions start. Calming your mind and focusing in is the perfect way to get your conference day started. Plus, there’ll be some free goodies for attendees! 2. Ann Handley. As the First Chief Content Officer, she knows that without great content, campaign efforts go to waste and high engagement is near impossible. We can’t wait to hear her strategies and best practices for attracting, engaging and retaining customers and patients with content. 3. The New Science of Marketing. This preconference session on Monday April 13th highlights everything we’re passionate about; using data to drive strategic decision making. What every org wants, […]
What You Should Do When Your Marketing Campaign Fails
You’re in a meeting. You have a GREAT idea for a marketing campaign that is sure to make a statement and enhance your brand. This campaign will rise above all others to take a stand on an important issue or give your audience the voice they deserve! *Cue heroic music* You share your idea and everyone in the meeting agrees with you (clearly this is hypothetical). The campaign gets put into motion. The result? Instead of the inspiration and loyalty you expected it to receive, it gets twisted and there is backlash. What’s your next move when your customers demand answers? In the last week, I’ve seen two marketing campaign “fails” that were highly publicized. Here’s a quick summary of each in case you missed them. Starbucks’ #RaceTogether The first marketing campaign fail was the Starbucks “Race Together” campaign where employees placed stickers or wrote “#RaceTogether” on cups. It was Starbucks’ attempt to ignite a national discussion about race and promote their goal of putting more stores in minority communities. It received a ton of criticism and after only one week, the campaign was pulled. If you search Twitter for #RaceTogether, you can immediately feel the negative tone (or if […]
HPR15 Recap: Using Data Analytics to Improve Healthcare Outcomes
At the Hospital and Physician Relations Executive Summit in Scottsdale, AZ, we attended a lot of great sessions. There was one in particular that we thought would paint a very clear picture of how data analytics can improve healthcare and decrease costs. John Gillespie, MD, MMM of Palladian Health and Joseph A. Eberle, Managing Director of Data Analytics at Computer Task Group gave us an hour packed with great information about their analytics experience. We’ve summarized it in as small of a nutshell as we could muster, without leaving out any of the good parts. The Healthcare Roadblock If a patient has a chronic disease, they get tested, diagnosed and then they opt to receive the treatment. To a doctor, that is a logical flow of care but at Palladian Health it wasn’t occurring that way. Many patients were diagnosed and then didn’t comply with the treatment plan. The result was lower treatment rates, higher readmissions and increased healthcare expense. To solve the mystery that seemed so logical to health care professionals, they took a closer look at the patient data. The Data and Analysis Through a grant, a multi-year project began to put in place a data analytics platform that […]
SmartBase Run-Ins with Kevin Garnett
If you’re Minnesotan and not living under a rock, you probably already know that Kevin Garnett has returned to the Timberwolves after his 8 year hiatus from MN basketball. From the day KG signed with the Timberwolves in 1995 (check out those shirts! ^^ [Photo credit: KSTP.com]), Minnesotans have been collecting Garnett stories from run-ins with the always friendly and mostly goofy power forward. In honor of his return to the Timberwolves and his first game back tonight against the Washington Wizards, we’d like to share a few of our own “KG stories” from SmartBase employees. “One night, I was taking the family out to dinner at Manny’s Steakhouse. Kevin Garnett walked in with a group of his friends to have dinner. This was back in KG’s early years with the Timberwolves, so he and his friends were pretty young and having a good time. One of my family members asked Kevin for an autograph. He was so friendly and nice, he said yes right away and signed a napkin. When we looked at the napkin, it said ‘Stay Sweat, Kevin Garnett’. Okay, so he might not have been the best speller, but it did turn into one of the […]
The Evolution of Channel Marketing: Strategies to Win – A Recap
Channel Marketing has been grappling many challenges within the last few years. As a member of Business Marketing Association Minnesota, I moderated a panel discussion this week with four marketing executives from well-known corporations. My job was to facilitate a conversation about this evolution in channel marketing. The panel discussed their channel challenges and the steps they have taken to overcome them. Here are the highlights: Chris Hawver – Director of Channel Marketing, Seagate Technology When it comes to the channel, I haven’t seen a whole lot that’s really new. For example, most people when asked how they do their channel marketing will say they do trade shows, golf events, and dinners with their partners. When asked about lead generation, they have the same answer. In my experience, channel partners don’t have the resources or the skill sets to do successful demand generation. Because of this, vendors will push out campaigns, webinars and direct mail “in a box”. One way I believe you can achieve success in channel marketing is for vendors to stop pushing these campaigns out to their partners. Instead, they should pull the partners in by generating leads and supporting the sales process. Knowing your segments, […]