When Branding, Don't Follow the Herd

You're a global, market-leading, socially responsible company with a broad product portfolio and a deep commitment to diversity and sustainability.

Guess what?

Your customers don't care, according to new research by McKinsey.

The consultancy studied the marketing materials of 90 B2B companies, then asked 700 buyers to rank by importance the themes expressed in those materials.

It turns out buyers don't evaluate prospective suppliers in terms of global reach, market leadership, or their commitment to social responsibility, diversity and the environment—among the most prevalent themes in today's marketing materials.

Instead, buyers care most about suppliers' responsiveness, honesty and expertise—themes rarely expressed in the materials.

The researchers caution against "following the herd" when developing marketing themes.

Get Personal in Your Marketing

Ready for a shocker?

B2B brands have stronger emotional bonds with customers than B2C brands.

According to a new study by the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), 40% to 70% of customers feel an emotional tie to such brands as Oracle, Accenture, FedEx, SAP and Salesforce.

In contrast, only 10% and 40% of customers feel an emotional tie to such brands as CVS, L'Oreal and Wal-Mart.

Most of us are taught—and believe—that B2B customers care only about the business value a brand delivers.

But, based on its findings, CEB urges B2B marketers to adopt campaigns that focus on the fulfillment of customers' personal and emotional needs.

B2B campaigns that promise personal value have twice the impact of those promising business value, as demonstrated by recent campaigns by Xerox, Grainger and Edwards Lifesciences.

Searchers Getting Wordy

Bloggers can take heart from a trend in the way customers are searching on line.

Searchers are increasingly using complete sentences and long phrases as search terms, according to software maker Hubspot.

They're realizing that simple search terms can no longer pinpoint useful Web content, given its enormity.

So, for example, instead of entering "sales training," a searcher might enter "two-day onsite sales training for a small insurance brokerage in Kentucky."

"As a result of these more complex searches, Google has actually changed its algorithm to better fit conversational questions from searchers," Hubspot says.

Google's change in its algorithm will help drive more traffic to blogs, "which are designed by nature to be educational, answer questions, and provide background info," Hubspot says.

Social Spam Surging

Spammers are frantically spreading their muck across the social media networks, according to a study by Nextgate.

Spam increased by more than 350% on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn during the first six months of 2013.

Facebook and YouTube host considerably more spam than the other social networks, according to the study.

We're immune to the spam that floods our email in-boxes, but social spam is insidious, because it's much more difficult to detect.

And there's another reason spammers love it.

Where spam delivered as an email reaches one victim at the time, spam delivered as a post on a social media network can reach thousands.

A Content Marketing First

According to ADWEEK, Bank of America ran a banner ad this week on NYTimes.com that, when clicked, activated a live Webcast of The New York Times' "Schools for Tomorrow" conference.

Visitors who clicked the ad tuned into a live stream of the one-day event, Webcast inside the banner.

Bank of America was a sponsor of the conference.

An advertiser has never before hosted a live Webcast of a Times conference within an ad, says ADWEEK.

The ad "represents the demand by marketers today to align with, create and use content to get the attention of ad-weary consumers in fresh ways," ADWEEK says.

Expect to see a lot of copycats in the next 12 months.