Is Silence Golden?

Under attack, corporations used to hunker down.

Herbert Schmertz changed that.

Schmertz, who died last week at 87, as head of PR at Mobil in the 1970s pioneered use of the "advertorial” to confront critics of the company.

He bought space on the op-ed page of major dailies like The New York Times and used it to publish essays expressing his company's viewpoint.

Many of his peers said Schmertz took unnecessary risks by combating critics. 

Critics, they insisted, are best ignored; eventually, they go away; and, in the meantime, media reporting of their positions can be influenced privately.

But is silence golden?

No company wants to go on record at the risk of losing business. A slip can tarnish a reputation in an instant; customers sympathetic with critics' views can be alienated; and arguing in public can make management look callous.

But the lessons of PR failures today are plentiful. They teach that “no comment,” while a company's knee-jerk response to critics, isn't always the safe course.

Darkest Hour

England's policy of "appeasement"―letting Hitler grab neighboring lands with impunity―provides the backstory of Darkest Hour, the new biopic about Churchill and Chamberlain.

As we watch the media under attack by right-wing Republicans, Churchill's warnings about the dangers to freedom of the press are as relevant today as they were in his time.

And so are his actions to sidestep thought control.

During the 1930s, Chamberlain favored appeasement, for an extremely practical reason: his party's rule hinged on the votes of working-class Britons, who opposed foreign entanglements and distrusted war profiteers (after all, they'd paid the price for militarism in the previous war against Germany).

In 1938, Chamberlain signed an accord with Hitler labeled the Munich Agreement, which let the Führer annex part of Czechoslovakia if he agreed to stop seizing more territory. Most Britons praised Chamberlain's coup; but of course it didn't stop Hitler, who provoked war with England a year later, when he invaded Poland. The pacifist Chamberlain proved within eight months an inept wartime leader, opening the door for Churchill's appointment by the king as his successor (the first scene of Darkest Hour).

Chamberlain's most fiery critic, Churchill had spent years protesting appeasement, using his favorite soapbox: the newspaper op-ed. When Chamberlain―in keeping with the Munich Agreement―moved to stifle all opposition to Hitler, he ruled out critical speeches in Parliament and threatened the newspapers with shutdown, citing national secrecy laws. Churchill, in response, promised to take his message to the streets.

In a November 1938 speech before the national press club, Churchill wondered aloud whether Chamberlain wouldn't rather live in a totalitarian state. "In those states they conduct foreign policy on the basis that the press say nothing but what it is told, and immediately say what it is told. It might be very convenient, no doubt, if we could suppress public opinion here, and everything was allowed to go on quietly without our knowing what was going on outside."

Churchill suggested England was in fact already experiencing a press blackout. With appeasement's critics in Parliament muzzled and the press censored, Chamberlain enjoyed carte blanch to bamboozle Britons. 

The situation left opponents like Churchill one choice: to resist the government's policy through the "public platform." And resist Churchill did. 

Between September 1938―when the Munich Agreement was signed―and September 1939―when Germany invaded Poland―Churchill spoke against appeasement relentlessly on the radio. He also repackaged 80 of his op-eds into a book―which became an immediate best-seller―and, with financial help from silent backers, erected billboards calling for his appointment to Chamberlain's cabinet. 

Churchill's cabinet appointment did come, three days after Hitler entered Poland and simultaneously with England's declaration of war with Germany.

2017: Year of Bunco

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.

― Niccolò Machiavelli

2017―a year which will live in infamy―will be remembered as the year of bunco. 

The year in highlights:

• In December, the GOP-led Congress sells the public secretly-written tax reform based on its ability to lift the economy, when in fact the legislation will have no effect but to enrich already-rich donors. It promises as well to increase the federal deficit by at least $1.5 trillion within 10 years.
  
  
• In December, citing privacy concerns, the FCC revokes net neutrality, dooming the practice of free speech, social and political activism, and small-business success via the Internet. The action follows Congressional repeal in March of Obama-era Internet privacy protections.
  


• In November, despite extensive evidence, President Trump insists Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election is a "hoax" perpetrated by his opponent's minions. Meanwhile, an increasingly revanchist Russia readies to invade NATO countries, without comment from the president.
  
  
• In October, four days after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, the NRA states, "Banning guns from law-abiding Americans based on the criminal act of a madman will do nothing to prevent future attacks." Although more than one mass shooting occurs daily, gun makers―via the NRA and its lickspittles in public office―maintain any effort to regulate guns would be fruitless.
  
  
• In August, 10 days after riots in Charlottesville, Trump blames his critics―including the vast majority of journalists―for rousing white supremacist hate groups, while claiming at the same time his critics "are trying to take away our history and heritage."
  
  
• In June, EPA head Scott Pruitt defends Trump's exit from the Paris Accord on grounds that it will create jobs. Asked whether Trump and he believe man-made climate change is real, Pruitt responds, "The president has indicated the climate is changing; it’s always changing. I’ve indicated the same.” The US now stands as the earth's only nation to reject the treaty.
  

Advice to CES: Add a Super Keynote

The producers of North America's largest B2B event, CES, are in the hot seat.

Seems they neglected to include any women in the lineup of keynote speakers at next month's show. The error was compounded when a spokesperson answered hostile critics by saying none was qualified, and blaming the paucity of women leaders on the tech industry.

The fact that CES has featured 21 women keynoters in the past 11 years escaped notice.

My humble advice to CES: add a super keynote (and make sure she's a she).

Words aren't your ally in this case, so quit relying on them.

Actions speak louder.

The Seven Pillars of Lead Gen

Businesses that depend on salespeople for lead generation cannot grow rapidly or steadily.

Salespeople aren't good at it. 

While slow, uncertain growth may be—in fact, is—just fine for most business owners, for the rest lead gen is the job of marketers.

I'm aghast at the number of marketers I encounter who don't grasp lead gen's fundamentals, perhaps because they've never had to do more for a business owner than "make us look pretty."

Those marketers need to master the seven pillars of lead gen, if they hope to avoid tomorrow's scrap heap of outmoded jobs.

The seven pillars are:

• Email. Of all the pillars, email has the best ROI; but it's overdone and threatened with extinction on many fronts. And many marketers have no clue how to write compelling emails, or leverage prospect lists.

• Events. Events are expensive, but unbeatable for generating leads and accelerating conversions. But many marketers don't grasp the importance of speaking at events, engaging attendees, or following up. They believe it's sufficient merely to show up.

• Telemarketing. Outbound telemarketing. although not cheap, has the highest response rate. But many marketers shun it, due to its unfortunate association with "boiler rooms."

• Direct mail. Out of favor for over a decade, postal mail is the Comeback Kid, because it delivers leads at high rates. But many marketers aren't even familiar with the basics.

• Content. Content is marketing, the secret sauce the generates leads—and SEO. But too many marketers lack the imagination and discipline to produce and publish quality content—whether written, recorded, or illustrated—at a regular pace. And too many don't know how to syndicate content.

• Advertising. With the targeting tools and niche websites available today, web ads have become solid sources of leads. But many marketers don't know what makes an ad click-worthy.

• PR. PR isn't dead, it's just different than it used to be. It's still storytelling par excellence and a powerful lead-gen tactic when used correctly.

How to Ignite More Attendees

Why are marketers pouring money into influencer marketing?

Dwell time.

Customers spend on average 19 seconds looking at a digital ad, 128 seconds looking at an influencer's content.

That's seven times the dwell time—a duration likely to rise soon with the increase in ad-blocking in the coming months.

So how can you use influencer marketing to promote your event? 

Experiential agency Legacy Marketing suggests these 10 ways:

Find the right influencers. To find thought leaders in your category, surf on social platforms using hashtags and trending topics relevant to your event.

Set reasonable expectations. Understand both the positives and negatives of the influencer's preferred social network when you establish goals.

Chill out. Let influencers do what they do. You can mention guardrails they should keep within, but don't dictate their posts.

Build a relationship. Don't treat the influencer like another vendor. Make her part of your family.

Strive for quality. Quality trumps quantity. You're better served finding an avid "micro-influencer" with 1,000 followers than a haughty generalist with 1 million.

Run contests. Engage the influencer in helping you promote contests.

Minimize brand-speak. Give the influencer talking points, but let her do the talking.

Track. Ask the influencer to use tracking tags when possible, so you can measure her efforts. Be sure she also includes a link to your website!

Be patient. Influencer marketing takes time.

Be authentic. Influencer marketing works because it’s a way to leverage a trusted voice. Don’t compromise that trust by inserting marketing messages where they're not welcome.

All the Way

The standard B2B marketing tactics are obsolete, says Evy Wilkins, VP of Account Based Marketing at Traackr.

Disruptors like ad blockers and email filters have outmoded them.

Thank goodness there's influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing works, Wilkins says, because most customers rely on expert opinions  to make buying decisions. 

They find the opinions on social media. 

When you win the love of opinion leaders (who'll parrot your sales-talk on social media), you can again begin to romance customers.

But it takes a change of heart.

"For decades, marketers have been in a rhythm of campaign-based activities," Wilkins says; but "influencer marketing is about long-term relationships that don’t go up and down with budget levels."

Influencer marketing, Wilkins says, is "always on."

You can't woo an influencer, for example, to love your brand for eight weeks, targeting only 30-year-old English-speaking males who work in greater San Francisco.

It doesn't work that way—even when you pay the influencer.

You Can Thank Associations for National Days

July 6 is National Fried Chicken Day.

Marked merely to drive product sales—in this case, sales of chicken parts by fast-food restaurants—the hennish little holiday typifies most so-called "National Days."

National Days are PR stunts—or the vehicles thereof—that date back to the Roman Empire, when emperors declared micro holidays constantly, in order to keep the bread-and-circus-loving citizens of Rome satisfied.

Lupercalia, for example, was a micro holiday marked every February 15th. The Romans would celebrate the day by sacrificing goats, drinking lots of wine, and parading around in the nude, in hopes of banishing evil spirits.

We moderns prefer National Days that honor stuff we can buy: consumer goods like almonds, bourbon, cupcakes, eggs, hot dogs, pancakes, spreadsheets, towels, tubas, and underpants.

As of 2017, association marketers have spawned over 1,200 of this sell-ebrations, according to the National Days Calendar.

To apply for your own National Day, all you need do is submit it to the keepers of the Calendar.

"The buildup annually to a National Day is great," the application states. "News stories, increase in product sales, top of mind awareness and much more can be generated annually."

Great, that is, provided you're not a chicken.

Patriotism is the Refuge of Stooges

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: if we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.

― Carl Sagan

Hundreds of gun-toting "patriots" arrived this weekend at Gettysburg, to protect the national military park's Confederate monuments from desecration by leftists.

Although the leftists never materialized, blood was shed. One patriot accidentally shot himself in the foot.

The perfect metaphor, if there ever were one.

Patriotism is the refuge of stooges.

My plea to patriots this July 4th: read a freakin' history book (preferably not one published in Texas).

You might try Apostles of Disunion.

Illustrating the "real history" of the Civil War, the book recounts how a group of state-appointed commissioners from the Deep South traveled the upper Confederacy in 1860 spreading the secessionists' message: Lincoln, they said, would emancipate the slaves, and plunge the South into a racial nightmare.

During the next five years, 620,000 Americans would die, to settle the emancipation question.

The "fake history" took root after Appomattox, when disgruntled Confederate veterans began retailing the myth of the "Lost Cause" at their yearly reunions.

The war, they said, was never about slavery: it was waged only to defend the antebellum South, a moonlit magnolia paradise peopled by happy hoedowning slaves and their affectionate white masters.

These same propagandists made sure to regulate the history textbooks used in every school, while their dutiful daughters would later make sure to hype movies like D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” David O. Selznick's “Gone with the Wind'” and Walt Disney’s “Song of the South.”

The Art of the Real

In the face of historically low approval ratings, President Trump mounted a puzzling charade on Monday.

He opened a Cabinet meeting to the media and filled the hour with a ham-fisted celebration of unearned and imaginary achievements in jobs creation, crime reduction, and national security.

His pathetically amateurish attempt at PR backfired.

Little wonder.

Forget fake: constituents―and customers―want real.

Nine of 10, in fact, told Bonfire Marketing they value real over every other brand attribute.

Customers today back brands they perceive to be honest, and shy from those they don't, says Andrew Reid, author of The Authenticity Handbook. "Authenticity is now a business imperative," Reid says.

I urge President Trump and his handlers to read my whitepaper, Path of Persuasion: Winning Customers in the Age of Suspicion.

It's an Oldy, but Goodly.

The New New Rules of Marketing and PR

Either write something worth reading or
do something worth writing about.

— Benjamin Franklin

David Meerman Scott galvanized marketers a decade ago with The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

The book still makes everyone's list of "all-time favorites."

Scott's advice was premised on a sudden realization: gatekeepers had grown irrelevant.

If marketers only thought and acted like journalists, and exploited the popularity of websites and social media channels, their messages could "go direct" to customers.

Revolutionary thinking in the day.

But times change, the tragedy of the commons is inescapable, and rules wear out.

Content Shock is now Public Enemy Number 1.

The new new rules of marketing and PR are:

1. Don't create content. Create content customers want.
   
   
2. Don't create buzz. Create products that create buzz.

Content Marketers: Are You Running a Greasy Spoon?

I don’t have an audience; I have a set of standards.

― Don DeLillo

Content Marketing Digest describes the difference between the work of an SEO consultant and that of a brand journalist as "the difference between a greasy spoon diner with a broken dishwasher and a five-star restaurant."

You not only handicap, but harm, your brand when you make SEO your content marketing goal.

Feeding your tribe Michelin-star morsels should be your goal.

SEO-focused content marketing tarnishes your brand, says content marketer Roman Kowalski, because the consultants who practice it consider content "just a wrapper to contain the backlink." That mindset "leads to the creation of articles that don’t measure up to journalistic standards."

Consultants who focus on SEO are also hoodwinking clients, Kowalski says, by pretending they can still just swipe other brands' content; have a student in India rewrite it; run the keyword-stuffed abomination through Copyscape; and generate Google juice. The days when that tactic worked have passed. Google is wise to it. The best you can hope for from the tactic are for a few backlinks to appear on some bottom-feeder's website. And you'd better pray no client reads your content.

More effective, Kowalski says, is to create original content customers might read―and enjoy. Like case studies, research reports, how-to manuals, insight papers, or opinion pieces.

Most effective is old-fashioned PR―the creation of well-researched pieces that would pass traditional editorial oversight by mainstream and trade media outlets.

"Creating this type of article is far beyond the domain of the SEO consultant," Kowalski says. "It requires the unbiased eye of a trained journalist who also has the mind of a marketer.

"The goal isn’t just to drive traffic―it is to provide useful content and to engage the audience.

"As search engine algorithms grow more sophisticated every year, marketers will have to continuously adjust their strategies to shift from simply capturing eyeballs to capturing mindshare."

United Breaks Guitars. But Priceline Breaks Contracts.

You've probably heard Dave Carroll's story.

He's the musician whose $1,200 guitar was broken by United Airlines baggage handlers.

Dave tried for nine months to move the company to honor his claim. But United said "No," because he'd failed to submit the claim within 24 hours of the incident.

So he wrote and recorded a song, "United Breaks Guitars," and uploaded it to YouTube.

After only 150,000 views, United contacted Dave and offered to pay the claim if he'd delete the video.

Dave instead produced and uploaded two more, related songs, at which point the media picked up his story. He did over 200 interviews.

Then, the song parodies and knockoffs started, and millions of people learned to sing "United Breaks Guitars." On one flight from Newark, New Jersey, the passengers sang it in chorus as the plane taxied to the terminal.

Within three weeks, the company's stock plummeted by 10%, a decrease in value of $180 million.

A week ago, my wife and I tried to board a flight from Washington, DC, to London, using tickets we'd purchased for $1,200 six months earlier through Priceline, only to learn the company had cancelled the tickets.

When I called Priceline from the airport, I was told it had indeed cancelled the tickets in September and would not issue a refund. Ever. "We do not issue refunds," I was told.

My wife and I made other travel arrangements, at six times the cost of the cancelled Priceline tickets.

Next week, I'll send a brief protest letter to Priceline's executive chair, Jeff Boyd.

I'll remind Mr. Boyd of Dave Carroll's story and close the letter with the words, "Song to follow."

Neither Captious Nor Weasly Be

When it comes to customers, don't be captious. Niggling gets you nowhere.

How many times have you contacted sales or customer service, only to be informed you've called the wrong line? Or told to fill out some online form first? Or made to feel a fool, because you don't know if you have Version 4.2?

When conversing with a customer, be sensible and humble. To show off your knowledge blunts your effectiveness.

And when it comes to customers, don't weasel. Weaseling destroys trust.

If you need to make a point with a customer, make it clearly, concisely, candidly.

How many times have you contacted sales or customer service, only to be informed the price isn't actually available, the product doesn't really work, the warranty is never, ever applicable? "You'd have known that, if you'd seen the fine print."

When conversing with a customer, be sincere and straightforward. To squirm out of every promise makes you a weasel. And the weasel is a threatened species.

The Death of PR

When I was learning the ropes, PR packed punch.

It could land big B2B companies among the lead stories on the evening news and the front pages of papers. And―like a great equalizer―could do the same for small B2B companies, too.

Big B2B companies had dedicated PR departments; B2B PR agencies flourished; and solo B2B PR practitioners were legion.

No longer.

Marketers I know and respect agree: PR's dead. David Meerman Scott (his famous 2007 book, anyway) killed it.

Scott encouraged marketers to substitute PR for advertising; become publicists, instead of peddlers; and to accelerate marcom by cutting out the middleman (the traditional media).

We took his advice―and, in the process, killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. When everyone's a publicist, no one is.

It didn't help that, at the same hour, two new threats—shared and owned media—came on the scene, stealing even more thunder from earned (and paid) media.

So, what's next?

Influencer Relations, says B2B marketing consultant Tom Pick.

Influencer Relations' job is to generate earned backlinks to a B2B company's website, improving SEO. The practitioner's duty is to persuade influencers to embed a link in any mention of the company.

"The work of today’s 'PR' pros is really about building relationships with key influencers," Pick says. 

"The people we call 'PR' pros actually spend most of their time communicating with some mix of local, business, financial, and industry media; bloggers; industry and financial analysts; channel and technology partners; industry associations or trade groups; internal staff; universities; and community groups. In short, with influencers."

Where Should CMOs Invest in 2017?

How should a CMO invest her budget in 2017?

Forbes asked seven ad agency execs for recommendations. Their answers were:

Video. Video drives brand engagement and can boost conversion rates on landing pages by 80%.

Digital. "Customers in 2017 will be digital; be there," said Craig Cooke, CEO of Rhythm.

Employee engagement. Invest inside, and turn every employee into a sales evangelist.

Social. Social is the most organic way to market your business. But it takes work, so hire someone outside to do it.

Website. A content-rich website improves SEO, boosts traffic, and keeps audiences on your site, rather than some network.

PR. "The art of great storytelling through media isn’t going away," said Nicole Rodrigues, CEO, NRPR Group.

Content. "Content shock" makes quality content today's key differentiator.

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Forbes polled only traditional and digital agencies, omitting the experiential. So, I'll add:

Events. Done well, nothing―absolutely nothing―accelerates brands faster. My humble opinion? Move events to the top of your list.

The Magnificient Seven

On her blog, B2B marketing maven Ruth Stevens ranks seven channels by their power to acquire customers. In order, the channels are:

SEM. "The hottest of the hot," because buyers head to Google first to solve problems. "Marketers can hardly find more targeted media," Stevens says. The key to success, of course, is to pick keywords buyers use.

Telemarketing. The "workhorse medium of B-to-B direct marketing" and "the closest thing to a face-to-face selling environment." Beside selling, telemarketing is ideal for lead discovery, qualification and nurturing.

Letters and postcards. "The ol’ reliable," direct mail delivers. Buyers want information to help them do their jobs, so postal pieces are likely to be read.

Dimensional mailers. "Lumpy” mailers gets past gatekeepers, so are even more likely to be read.

Trade shows. Face-to-face performs spectacularly—when the audience is qualified. Big "horizontal" shows can be wasteful.

PR. "Simply the best bang for the buck," PR delivers awareness with high credibility. Contributed articles and news “manufactured” by original research work well.

Your website. "Your own website is the tool that can provide the cheapest, and the most qualified, sales leads," Stevens says. To work for you, your site must feature an offer and a call to action. That offer can be as simple as a white paper or e-newsletter.

What channels aren't gang members?

Print advertising. "Solid direct response ads can work brilliantly for lead generation," Stevens says. "The problem is that most ad budgets are controlled by marketing communicators who are unschooled in direct marketing."

Broadcast advertising. With the sole exception of some radio buys, ads run on broadcast and cable outlets are expensive and wasteful.

Email. "Despite its promise, email has failed business marketers as a prospecting medium, due entirely to the scourge of spam," Stevens says. "We are seeing better cost-per-lead results using direct mail."

PS: Ruth Stevens is a featured speaker at DARE, next June in Baltimore. Don't miss her!

My Marketing Prediction for 2017

Marketers—including B2B ones—will turn to stunts to grab attention.

Corporate Wedding Planners Strike Back

An "aspirational" ad campaign of the late 1960s proclaimed, "You've come a long way, baby."

It took event planners a while to catch up.

But they assuredly have, as made clear by Kerry Smith and Dan Hanover's 200-page Experiential Marketing: Secrets, Strategies, and Success Stories from the World's Greatest Brands.

No longer "corporate wedding planners," experiential marketers in the 2010s have become marketing kingpins—the drivers and integrators of all the marketing "silos."

"Live experiences have ignited a marketing revolution in which brands around the world have committed to upgrading their marketing strategies, budgets, and platforms," Smith and Hanover write. "And that revolution has driven a much-needed evolution of the marketing channels and silos used by brands for 50 years."

The heart of the book lies in Chapter Four, "Anatomy of an Experiential Marketing Campaign," where the authors describe the 11 "Experiential Pillars" underpinning the channel.

"As with a great recipe in which the ingredients are blended together to create a unique flavor, these pillars work together to optimize engagement and will allow you to achieve the brand-building, value-creating, clutter-braking power of experiential marketing," they write.

They base the chapter not on hard knocks or gut feelings, but an analysis of the 1,000+ winners of the Ex Awards, the annual awards competition for live events they've produced since 2002. And the events they consider take not one form, but many, from PR stunts, in-store events and road shows, to trade shows, user conferences and sales meetings.

Reading Experiential Marketing tempted me to update my recent post, "My 5 All-Time Favorite Books on Marketing," because the book has the same quality as the "mind-blowing game-changers" I listed there.

No matter how much you've dabbled in event production, the authors give you a palpable sense while you're reading the book that you're on a path of discovery; that you're like one of those "Pioneers of Television" who's in at the inception of a powerful new medium with a yet-understood capacity to build large audiences and fundamentally reshape worldviews.

Buy it. Read it.


You've come a long way baby! by JustAnotherJester

The Marketing of Tomorrow

What's ahead for marketing tomorrow?

Writing for Forbes.com, Kimberly Whitler, a professor at the University of Virginia, asked CMOs for their predictions. 

She discovered:

• "B2B influencer marketing" will become all the rage. CMOs will turn to popular business authors, speakers, podcasters, and executives with large followings and pay them to hawk their products.

• CMOs will also begin to rely more on employees to spread brand messages through social, knowing they can speak more effectively than ads. And, because buyers hang out on many social platforms, CMOs will begin to think "multichannel first."

• B2B CMOs will embrace "account-based marketing," but not without a struggle, because it's hard to influence every decision-maker on every buying committee. To that end, CMOs will begin to use a "recommendation engine" like the one used by Netflix.

• Design will become the key brand differentiator, because big data is now just a "commodity." And educational content will become king. Unfortunately, CMOs will produce too much of it for buyers to absorb.

• CMOs will quit focusing on new martech (although thousands of new martech products will flood the marketplace). CMOs will focus instead on cybersecurity. They're spending up to 25% of their budgets on social, and have made their companies targets for cybercriminals.

• 30% of CMOs will be fired next year, because they lack the ability to drive results. Polish that resume!