When in Doubt, DON'T Send it Out

I just browsed through a white paper (http://img.en25.com/Web/CisionUS/Cision_When_In_Doubt.pdf - requires registration) offered by Cision, a media management company, which discussed the most basic principals of media targeting. The main message for PR professionals was to do your homework, research the journalist/blogger and their areas of interest, and only send information that is relevant to their area of interest. It sounds like PR 101 and makes you wonder why they would need to write a white paper on the most basic of PR principles. The media and communications professionals alike are all dealing with information overload and it can be easy to overlook even the most basic principals when pressed for time and stressed for results. So, probably not a bad idea to remind ourselves to stop and take a breath from time to time to be sure the media list is appropriate and the communication on target.

Is it all over for live Events?

Are we nearing the end of the live trade show as we know it today? Many believe that trade shows are already dead and buried evidenced by shrinking attendance, rising costs to exhibit and attend, and the advent of virtual events that can be staged for a fraction of the cost of a live event.

Personally, I believe the opposite. While the glory days are long gone, the value proposition for the live event experience remains strong. The main reason is due to the value derived from face-to-face interactions. And even though much of the information gained at a trade show can be downloaded via the Web from the comfort of your office, what's missing is the feeling you get about the company when you visit their exhibit, a personal hands on demo of their products, and the impression you formed of the company after meeting their representatives in person.

Why is that so important? Let's say, for example, you were in the market to purchase an automobile. With today's technology, you can probably visit the corporate Web site, select the make and model, color, interior, engine size, tires, etc., and purchase your exact automobile of choice with a click of a button. However, I doubt most people would do that. Before making a $30,000 investment, most people would drive down to the dealer, take the auto for a test drive, check out the service organization, and if everything seems to fit, haggle over the price. And before making the final decision, the buyer might just drive down to the other 10 area dealers to see of they can find a comparable vehicle at a better price.

And that's also the value of a trade show. I don't think business people can make an informed purchase decision on high ticket capital equipment after downloading marketing literature from the vendors. The most productive place to evaluate products from multiple vendors is at a live event, where one can visit all of the players in one place, speak directly with the technical people that are typically unavailable over the phone, see the product in action, and form an impression of the vendor.

So, in an age of shrinking travel and marketing budgets, hopefully, live events can survive. I'm still rooting for them.

Thanks to David Meerman Scott for his recent “epic” rant on “Freakin ROI” (courtesy of Todd Defren’s PR Squared Blog). It’s certainly music to the ears of marketing and PR professionals everywhere. Just think, wouldn’t it be nice if corporate executives could rely on their professional staff’s education, years of real world experience, and intuition and listen with an open mind to new ideas, strategies and tactics, like social media for instance. It’s an energizing wish, but in reality, they won’t and the reason is because of “Freakin ROI”, or the lack thereof at this point.

In today’s corporate culture, sales executives typically have the loudest voice in the conference room, and when quarterly sales don’t meet expectations, they are also first on the hot seat. In my experience, their first line of defense typically is to comment on the lack of sales leads. Of course, next in line is the marketing executive who now needs to justify his/her marketing tactics – and so the search for measurable marketing results begins. And when marketing budgets get cut, the first programs to be put aside are those tactics that are difficult to measure.

As David points out, many marketing tactics can and should be measured. But even with sophisticated analytics and CRM packages, tracking a contact through multiple touch points and attempting to correlate back to a sale or a sales lead, is as we know, nearly impossible in large B2B enterprises. Hence, creating a measurable ROI model for each specific marketing tactic is even more difficult.

So should we continue to attempt to generate ROI models, or is it futile and a waste of time? I believe that ROI is indeed important, while recognizing that there are many marketing and PR tactics that are clearly related to ROI, but not clearly measurable.  I guess, in the short term, it’s most important to fight the battle and continue to attempt to analyze and correlate data. In the long run, we can support the efforts of David Meerman Scott and other new media evangelists to change the entrenched corporate culture that’s reliant solely on ROI.