The keys to success include everything from preparation to expectations to location to actual facilitation.  Each group and topic will be different, and the facilitator should always be sensitive to the situation and be flexible.  But regardless of the specific session, I have found that most of these practices, when implemented, will yield stronger results.

Overall

1. Goals:  where there is no vision the people perish. Are you trying to develop a mission statement, solve a problem, come up with a new idea, or refine a current program?  If you don’t know exactly what you want to accomplish before you begin, chances are you will end up with a bunch of discussion but little accomplished.
2. Planning:  the devil is in the details. Everything from location to participants to discussion topics to brainstorming tactics is critical.  Yes, you want the group to have a casual feel, but that doesn’t mean that you need a casual approach to planning.   The more thoroughly you prepare, the more you will accomplish.
3. Focus:  keep your eye on the ball. Because brainstorming is open and free-flowing, and because there are “no bad ideas,” there is sometimes a tendency to get off track.  It is critical that the facilitator continually steer the group towards the overall objective.  This takes tact, because you don’t want to spurn participation, but it is critical.
4. Inclusion:  there is no “I” in “TEAM.” It is important to include all participants in the brainstorming.  You cannot afford to let one or two people dominate the group, nor can you let anyone quietly remain silent.  There is a reason each person is involved, and each person’s opinion is valuable.

Preparation

• Expectations: When inviting attendees, set clear expectations about why they are involved.
• Invitations: Make sure all participants know when, where and how long the session will last.  Don’t begin the session until everyone has arrived.
• Commitment: Make sure everyone in the group is committed to the goal, to attending and to participating.
• Attendee Preparation: While it’s okay for attendees to have a general idea why they are attending, they generally should not bring prepared ideas.  This leads to people “selling” their pre-conceived ideas versus trying to come up with the best ideas as a group.
• Group Size: Brainstorming can be done with groups of all sizes, but generally a minimum of four and a maximum of eight people is best.  If you need to conduct sessions with larger groups, then be prepared to introduce topics and divide into smaller sub-groups (e.g. if you have a group of 24, then introduce the topic, break into six sub-groups of four, and then have each group report back).
• Topics/Questions: The facilitator should come prepared with enough topics/questions/thought starters to fill the time and achieve the objective.  However, they should also have the flexibility to move in the direction the brainstorming leads, as long as it ultimately results in achieving the overall objective.

Space

• Location: Pick a space that is private, free of distractions, relaxing and preferably different than most are used to (e.g. avoid a conference room normally used by the group, go off-site).  Also pick a room that fits the group (you don’t want 20 people in a small conference room or six people in a gymnasium).
• Supplies: Have plenty of flip charts (or butcher paper), pads of paper, pens and markers.  Also supply drinks and snacks.  Another good idea is something for people to do with their hands while thinking (clay dough, small plastic toys, nerf balls, hacky sacks, etc).
• Distractions: Remove/turn off all phones, email, televisions and other potential external disruptions, including cell phones.

Facilitation

• Moderator Role: The moderator is a facilitator – not a participant.  Their job is to focus on guiding the group, soliciting feedback and moving the discussion forward.  They should not be offering their own ideas.  Also, the moderator needs to have energy.  If you drag, your group will follow.   And remember, brainstorming should be fun . . . not work!
• Documentation: Make sure ideas are being captured, usually through flip charts.  Flip charts are good because they are visible to everyone, people know their ideas have been captured, ideas remain visible to spur other discussion, and you can refer back to earlier ideas.
• Support/applaud ideas: There are no bad ideas, even if it is a bad idea.  The quickest way to quell ideation is to start judging and shooting down ideas.  Remember, often off-track ideas lead to other ideas that move towards the solution.  Don’t let people in the group judge or put down ideas.
• Parking Lot: Create a “parking lot.”  This is a flip chart where you write an idea down to come back to later.  This is a great tactic for keeping the group on track.  When someone brings up something that isn’t relevant say, “let’s put that in the parking lot and come back to it later if we have time.”  This way you don’t have to ignore someone, yet you can keep the group moving.
• Process: Separate brainstorming (idea generation) from the judging of ideas.  Many times when a group needs to get to a final short list of recommended solutions, they have to go through a multi-step process (oftentimes over multiple sessions).
  • Step 1:  Brainstorming (get all the possible ideas on the wall)
  • Step 2:  Evaluation (everyone votes, discusses and narrows down to the best options)
  • Step 3:  Combine/Refine (combine some ideas and refine others)
  • Step 4:  Finalize (determine the final recommendations)
• Probe: When preparing for you group, come up with a variety of different questions to get to the same end.  For example, if I wanted to know what someone enjoys doing, I could ask the following similar but different questions:
  • What is your favorite thing to do?
  • What is the coolest thing you have ever done in your life?
  • If you could spend this afternoon doing any one thing, what would it be?
  • If you had one day left to live, what three things would you do?
  • If you could spend one day with your favorite person in history, what would you do with him/her?

How about you?  What needs to be added to the list?  What techniques have worked for you?

If you have any doubt in your mind about the value and importance of internal marketing to build employee loyalty and performance this book will make you a believer! In just under 250 pages this “how to” book covers it all: the benefits of internal marketing; interesting case studies; proper messaging; audience segmentation; appropriate delivery systems; measurement tools; survey samples; recognition strategies and integrated planning timelines.

A brief summary of the authors’ description of what internal marketing is all about:

“Here’s the long and short of internal marketing: Employees must buy your message before your customers do. They must understand why your product or service is important, know what it can do for customers, believe in its integrity, and be inspired to make it even better. Employees have to understand where the company is headed and why. And they must be treated as grownups who can handle the truth, even when it is unpleasant. They have to be dedicated to working together to build the business. And finally they should feel proud to tell people what they do and where they work. When they feel like that, everyone will know it—especially your customers.”

The “E” Factor

The process for creating motivated employees is based on practicing what the authors call the four “E” behaviors:

1. Engaging: Involve employees in helping create your company’s vision and then paint a clear picture of how to execute it. Let them help define the heart and soul of your brand…what makes it different, special and wonderful…valued by customers and employees alike. Then craft the story and keep talking. Authors cite Steven Jobs, CEO and founder of Apple as one who has an amazing talent for sharing a clearly defined story and cause as he articulates to his employees what Apple stands for and where it’s headed. He really gives employees something to believe in. The result: Apple is a “cult brand” and an inspiration to many of its employees and customers.
2. Enabling: Once the vision, mission and values are created a company must provide a supportive and positive work environment along with proper training, tools, direction and the power to make the vision a reality.
3. Empowering: Great companies provide the autonomy and platform for employees to do what it takes to do their jobs well. They give people permission to make mistakes. They let them know the desired outcome, but allow employees the flexibility to do it their way.
4. Ensuring: Great companies have methodologies in place to establish clear goals, accountability, measurements for success and give appropriate rewards and recognition for performance.

“E” Employees

“E” employees are the kind of people who:

• Take risks
• Make suggestions
• Support others
• Smile a lot
• Motivate their co-workers
• Enjoy work
• Attract trust
• Like customers
• Define service as whatever the customer needs (whether it’s an external customer buying the product or an internal customer who needs assistance with a project)

“E” Employees Wow Your Customers

The authors state that the greatest differentiator a company can achieve is its reputation—its brand—for phenomenal service, superior products and quality in everything it does. And that kind of brand is built on the shoulders of “E” employees.

Engaged employees are passionate about the company and their work and this comes through every customer interaction, every product or service and the quality of everything they do. At the end of the day, a company does not take care of its customers—employees do.

Enabled employees have the resources and information to provide better customer service, deliver higher quality products and services and help the company grow. Being enabled imbues employees with the responsibility and accountability to be successful.

Empowered employees have a sense of ownership that makes them extremely passionate about their work. They also have the freedom to provide the highest level of service for customers.

That’s why:

FedEx management focuses on internal marketing because they understand their “E” employees will deliver fantastic service, wow their customers and turn tremendous profits. They named their corporate philosophy after a concept called PSP—people, service, profits in that order.

Richard Branson, the highly successful entrepreneur, and CEO of Virgin has the same philosophy, “We give top priorities to the interests of our staff; second to those of our customers; and third to shareholders. This is not only a reflection on the importance of our people; it is also the most positive way of fitting together these three priorities.”

Southwest Airlines is also a firm believer in marketing to its employees. As a result the company has created one of the strongest internal brands and cultures in the world—a culture of happy, loyal employees who want to treat their customers well. Southwest has been able to sustain its culture by constantly strengthening its internal brand through its core values.

It Starts With Culture

The process starts with a company’s culture…a reflection of a company’s leadership, philosophy, history and shared beliefs and values. A company’s culture inevitably affects whether employees will support or hinder desired change; it drives behavior. Misalignment within a company’s culture can cause employees to be resistant and slow to change. They may even sabotage desired behaviors. Internal marketing communicates a vision of the company culture, strengthens an already powerful brand culture and gives employees a roadmap for action.

When management lives and communicates the culture every day two very important things happen:

1. Employees see that management adheres to the company’s stated beliefs, also known as “walking the talk.”
2. It proves that management believes employees to be the heart and soul of the company.

Brand promise + Company’s ability to deliver = Business results

Eight Steps to Success

The authors have identified eight steps to implementing a successful internal marketing program. A lot more detail is provided in the book but here’s a very brief outline:

1. Set a course from A to B – SWOT analysis and goal/objective setting for the plan.
2. Define your audiences – Segmentation by associate profile, level of responsibility and location.
3. Assess the climate – Take the pulse of the organization by area or department. Are employees happy, disgruntled, trusting or suspicious?
4. Define your key messages – Motivational, strategic, news, training, management directives, and recognition.
5. Match the vehicles to the message – Company meeting, video conference, newsletters, email, and intranet.
6. Choose the champions – Leaders and managers who are articulate, enthusiastic, well liked and have a vested interest in the success of the program.
7. Execute the plan – Launch strategy and scale. Timelines, milestones and frequent communication.
8. Measure and adapt – Measure performance against objectives: focus groups, surveys, interviews.

What I’ve shared are just few of the ideas and thoughts from this great book. If your company or brand is overpromising and under delivering, Light Their Fire will provide you with inspiration and direction that could reignite your organization and set it on a course for new growth.

Of course, reading the book is the easy part. Implementation will take serious dedication and commitment.

Watch for the next book review on Living the Brand. In the meantime if you have any thoughts on internal branding in your own organization I’d love to hear them.

So I decided to write a quick blog post on job interviews from the PR perspective. Some of these rules can be applied when interviewing for any job. Some are specifically for public relations applicants.

• Research the agency and your interviewer. Know who our clients are, know the person that you will be talking to (almost every company has bios online) and know the focus of our business.
• Briefly research an agency’s clients. You don’t need to know anything in depth about them, but it’s an interview killer when someone asks, “So, who are your biggest clients?”
• Be specific on how you can help a company. We are a specialized industry. The public relations discipline consists of numerous specialties in and of itself, from media relations to crisis communications to media training to speech writing. How can your skills best be utilized?
• There is one thing that all public relations professionals should be: master communicators, specifically master written and verbal communicators. If you can’t write well, if you don’t have a grasp of proper grammar and punctuation and you don’t like to speak in front of people, this isn’t the business for you.
• Follow the news and know what is going on in the world and in your community. How can you help a company communicate and position a company positively, if you don’t have your pulse on what is taking place in the world or in your community?
• Understand that PR is not a 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. job.
• Dress appropriately and conservatively. For heaven’s sake, you’re being interviewed to be the spokesperson for a company and agency and/or a brand. Don’t you think they want you to represent them in a positive light?
• Follow up. I will never hire someone who doesn’t follow up with me following an interview in writing. Period. First, it’s rude. Second, it’s arrogant. Third, it’s a great way to show someone you really aren’t interested in the job. Finally, on the positive side, it’s a great way to showcase your writing skills. If you really want to get in on my good side, follow-up with a phone call, too.
• Communicate your pertinent extracurricular activities. Do you love social media? Are you writing a novel? I don’t care if you were a member of the sailing club, unless we have a sailing-related client. I do care if you are fluent in another language. I don’t care if you were your fraternity or sorority photo chairperson. I do care if you were photo editor of your school newspaper.

If you follow these tips, then you are sure to make a positive impression, stand out amongst most other candidates and give yourself a much better chance of getting hired.

“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”  – Jerry Seinfeld
via Think Exist

Perhaps only one thing strikes more fear into a Creative’s heart than not coming up with the big idea. That one thing? Actually presenting that big idea. And let’s face it; rarely does an idea sell itself.  So for 99% of the time, presentation skills are necessary. But the reality is most Creatives, from the obscure to the Boguskys, view these presentations with a mixture of fear and trepidation. We’re human after all.  And like others of our kind we’re prone to developing the dreaded “butterflies”.

How to overcome that fluttering feeling in ones tummy may be as simple as recognizing and remembering a few things:

Rehearse

Spend as much time preparing to present the work as you did putting the work together. Rehearse in front of your partner, your coworkers and the family dog. Jot down your key points. Again and again from memory. Do it until you know your material like the back of your hand.

Be yourself

Don’t stand in front of a room pontificating and throwing around $10 words. Present the work in a conversational and passionate way. If clients feel you’re BSing them, they’re less inclined to accept your solutions. It also sounds like you don’t know what the heck you’re talking about. One of my favorite people in the business always warms up his audience with a relevant, funny story told with a Catskill Comedian-like delivery before launching into his spiel.

Know thy client

Ernie Schenck, of Hill Holiday, describes it this way:

“I try to bulletproof the work in my mind as much as possible. I can do that because other than new business, I know the clients I’m dealing with. And I go through a lot of trouble to do deep surveillance on each and every one of them. The quirky stuff they like or don’t like. That kind of thing.  Know who you’re presenting to and you know what to avoid, what to say, what not to say, where not to go, how far you can take things.”
via The Ranch Blog

Make it about them

Try to keep yourself out of it. Two words you should never utter when presenting creative to clients is “I” or “we.”  You should make it about them.  Remember you’re not selling your brilliance; you’re solving a business problem.  So your presentation should be all about the business problem, and how the ideas you’ve developed might help that problem. By keeping yourself out of the equation, you make the conversation less personal, and you end up looking like more of an expert in the process.

Finally

Clients don’t want to be sold; they want you to be sold. You’re the expert, so present work you believe in.  Have an opinion. Have a recommendation. Tell the client what they should do. After all, that’s what they’re paying us for. And, believe it or not, most clients want to like what you’re presenting and most of all, they want to like you.

Got any presenting tips of your own?  Would love to hear them.

The benefits of SEO are numerous, but today we’re only going to focus on six areas: usability, code, rankings, traffic, cost and brand visibility.

Usability

The usability of any website is extremely important, not only from a search engine perspective but also from the users’ point-of-view. SEO can bring a lot of new aspects to the development table that will increase both the search engine results and the user experience.

User Experience

Even if your website gets tons of visits, if you’re not converting users, then the traffic is worthless. Making sure your users have a good experience is what separates a typical website from a site they’ll continue to use.

Examples of issues that can create a bad user experience:

• No prices or requiring users to call for prices
• Minimal or incomplete descriptions of products
• Poor quality images or no pictures at all
• Inconsistent navigation
• Poor organization

Search engine optimization is all about being thorough, so give your visitors all the details they’ll need and your site will be seen as an informative, user-friendly resource.

Clean Code

SEO is not the sole reason to strive for clean code, but it does go hand in hand with sites that are coded efficiently. Websites can be developed in numerous languages and techniques, and some methods are going to be better than others when it comes to search engine rankings.

A site that utilizes clean and semantic markup is typically going to outperform a site that doesn’t. Adhering to SEO guidelines is going to give your markup a more defined outline as well as making the hierarchy more clear to your users and the search engines. Document heading outlines, navigation, URLs and category management are all going to be indicators to your users on the architecture of your website. Make sure that your website is organized in a logical fashion no matter where you enter.

Search Engine Rankings

Optimizing websites for search engines means that your sites are going to be in front of your users when they’re ready. Most other forms of advertising are time and location sensitive and can mean your potential customers will never see your beautiful ad.

Examples of time and location-sensitive advertising:

• Magazine ad (hope they buy the issue, read it, see your ad and act on it)
• Billboard ad (hope they drive down that road, read the billboard and know what they’re supposed to do)
• Commercial (hope they’re watching TV, that channel and ready to let the info soak in)

Of course, all of these mediums have been used effectively for years, but there are also a lot of variables that can limit your ability to capture the attention of the audience.

24/7 Results

The nice thing about search engines and online sales is that your website doesn’t close, so your site can generate traffic and sales 24/7. Effective search engine optimization helps your site make the most of this advantage.

Long-Term Results

We hear a lot about search engine rankings and algorithms changing, and to be a good SEO you have to constantly know what Google is doing. While for the most part that’s true, you don’t have to spend all your time keeping up with the newest SEO techniques in order to get good rankings. A site that’s optimized with ethical, white hat SEO techniques can do very well on the search engines for a long time. As long as you follow a few basic rules, all of your sites can do well.

Targeted Traffic

Ideally, when writing content you’re optimizing the web pages for specific keywords and phrases. I see a lot of companies that don’t even think about keyword phrases until after all the content is written and the site is live. They wonder while they’re not showing up for “keyword phrase A,” and the phrase isn’t even mentioned in the content.

A huge benefit to SEO is that you actually control what kind of traffic your website is going to generate. By doing keyword research, you’ll be able to analyze which terms generate traffic and which terms will be the most beneficial to your company’s goals.

Keyword research can also give your company an indication on how the average consumer talks about your products or services. Many times, companies think their customers talk about them using certain, specific words, only to find—through keyword research—that they actually refer to you slightly differently. If you had known the alternate way your customers referred to your products, then you could have included that verbiage in the content to generate more traffic.

Cost-Effective

Having to pay a qualified SEO writer to do keyword research and optimize content can turn a lot of companies off, but if you look at the long-term costs, it’s a much better ROI than PPC (Pay Per Click) or other forms of online advertising.

Of course, having an in-house SEO is going to be the most cost-effective way to keep updating your website with quality content, but if you have to outsource the writing, then it can potentially be a one-time fee. Obviously, the more active you are in your SEO campaign the better you’ll do over the years, but if you’re looking to just get started, then optimizing the content once a year and then analyzing the results on a quarterly basis can be very cost-effective.

PPC can be a good way to generate quick traffic, and it definitely has its place for certain types of campaigns; but if you opt to only participate in PPC, then your advertising budget is going to continue to increase as the year goes on.

The budget throughout your PPC campaign is going to depend on a lot of factors. Cost of keywords, how many keywords, how targeted your content is for that particular keyword, how long the campaign runs. You could easily spend hundreds or thousands of dollars a month for multiple campaigns.

SEO can be a one-time fee that can pay for itself in just a few months, leaving the rest of the year generating profits on every sale. You can target as many keywords as you like without having to worry about how expensive each keyword is. Additionally, SEO doesn’t need the kind of hand-holding and ongoing monitoring that PPC can require, which gives you and your staff the flexibility to focus on other tasks.

Brand Visibility

If I search for your company name, I should find your site on the search engines. That’s a given, that’s not SEO. If you’re not found for your company name then you should fire who ever created your website and start over.

The real benefit of SEO when it comes to brand visibility is when a user searches for a general topic and your site comes into their results. For example, if I searched for “Forklift Parts” and you sold forklift parts, wouldn’t you want your site to be on page one of Google? Is it? Have you even checked?

If you take the time to create unique content on a consistent basis, you can begin to dominate the search engines for many variations of your targeted keyword phrases. Each time you create a new piece of content, you’ll generate a new listing in Google’s index. The more indexed pages you have, the more places you’ll show up in front of your customers. With a well-optimized campaign, your customers won’t be able to get away from you.

Conclusion

The Internet offers a wealth of business potential, and it is important for companies to take advantage of it. This means making sure your websites and everything you put online are optimized. SEO is a great way to put your company in front of your users and generate more leads and sales. The benefits of SEO are endless, but these six areas should be enough to get you thinking about what your current site is missing. Get started optimizing your website today with SEO and watch your rankings, sales and profits grow.

John Wanamaker, the famous retail magnate considered by many to be the father of modern advertising, once said,

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; trouble is I don’t know which half.”

I’d like to take that idea one step further:  The majority of any brand’s marketing dollars is wasted if investments are not also made in internal HR and marketing initiatives to create a strong brand culture; e.g., hire, retain, educate and inspire company associates to consistently and enthusiastically deliver on the brand promise. Why invest large sums of money on promoting an idealized image and set of expectations through external marketing initiatives if the brand itself under delivers? Yet many marketing and brand managers still believe advertising and promotion is the Holy Grail to drive sales and market share.  Internal brand-building continues to take a back seat, even though now more than ever, market success is ultimately determined by the holistic brand experience one has with products or services and their intimately related touch points.

In a recent article by Sara M. Roberts, author and president of Roberts Golden, an organizational change management and internal marketing consultancy, she underscored the importance of the following statement:

“How many employees does it take to make a brand?  Every one of them.  How many employees does it take to break a brand? Just one.”

Larry Oakner, Director of Brand Culture at Interbrand, also wrote in his white paper, Managing Your Brand Through Your Employees,

“What makes the difference between a ho-hum brand and a truly great one? A company’s employees.”

So in the weeks ahead, I’d like to share a few mini reviews from what, in my opinion, are three great books on the topic of motivating and inspiring employees to deliver on the brand promise. Each book brings a fresh and different perspective:

Light Their Fire

First a little about the authors: Susan M. Drake is the founder and president of Spellbinders, Inc., an internal marketing and communications consultancy; Michelle J. Gulman is an independent consultant who specializes in change management and internal marketing; and Sara M. Roberts is the founder of Roberts Golden, a San Francisco-based consultancy that specializes in change management and internal marketing solutions. Their book, Light Their Fire: Using Internal Marketing to Ignite Employee Performance and Wow Your Customers, does a great job of providing step-by-step approaches to engage employees in the vision of a business or a brand and to empower them to make decisions that build brand and customer loyalty.  The book includes practical tools and case studies to address the role of internal marketing in a variety of situations.

Living the Brand

Nicholas Ind is a writer and brand consultant based in Scandinavia. He’s written several business books including The Corporate Image, Great Advertising Campaigns, Branding Governance and The Corporate Brand. In his book, Living the Brand, Nicholas explores ways in which organizations should endeavor to engage and empower their employees to create “brand champions.” He advocates that organizations need to build meaning into ideas so that employees can genuinely live the brand in their day-to-day lives.  The book explores the nature of branding and explores why people have become such important definers of the brand. Perhaps his biggest point is this: both organizations and people need values—they are essential to well-being and a sense of worth.

Brand from the Inside

Authors Libby Sartain and Mark Schumann bring yet another fresh and relevant perspective for proven ways to link strong  emotional connections between employees and brands. Libby is a senior vice president of human resources for Yahoo and is responsible for leading Yahoo’s global HR efforts. Mark is the former global communications practice leader for the consulting firm Towers Perrin, where he counseled leaders of major corporations around the world on how to engage employees during challenging situations of defining change. Brand from the Inside is also a great “how-to” book that provides step-by-step instruction on how to motivate employees to consistently deliver on the experience the customer brand promises. The book is complete with examples and case studies from companies that prove how the “employee brand” can contribute to business results.

Be watching for more in-depth reviews of, and highlights from, each of these books. In the meantime, if you have any insights regarding your own personal experience (success or frustration) with getting employees to buy in and support your brand’s promise to the external marketplace, share them here. More to come.

While your gut may be telling you there’s all kinds of negativism out in social media just waiting to attack your brand if you wade in, the facts just don’t support it.  So now what’s keeping you from taking an active role in social media?

For any stat crunchers out there, here is the full research report.

If you are good at PR, there is no need for spin or even a pitch. All you have to do is tell the truth. Give out the information you have and answer questions directly and concisely. Really. No used car salesman tactics needed. No neuro-marketing research required. If the products or services are important to the audience, they will bite. The days of the hard sell and mass press releases are over.

With the rise of social media, and public relations merging and meshing into the technological world, being transparent and concise is absolutely critical. Take full advantage of the uber-niches that social media provides. Don’t pitch these people and talk at them.  Engage and talk with them. According to the Bad Pitch Blog, participation is key.

Northland International University was founded in 1976 and exists to train pastors, teachers, missionaries and godly laymen of tomorrow. Northland is located in Dunbar, Wisconsin, and enrolls 650 undergraduates and 100 graduate students, representing 45 states and 11 foreign countries.

“Northland is responding to what’s happening around the globe today,” said Ollila. “Northland International University is our answer to providing the necessary biblical and practical training and resources to local churches and Christians worldwide as they seek to fulfill the Great Commission in today’s exciting global culture.”

The website was designed and developed by Jackson-Dawson on an incredibly short time line, and the process of updating much of the site’s content continues.  The old website was spread across numerous sub domains making the information hard to find and not as user-friendly as it could have been.

Jackson-Dawson revamped the new website with an HTML/CSS framework custom to the needs of the Northland web team. Combining CSS, Javascript and Flash, JD was able to build the structure with standards-based and accessible markup and style.

To get more insight into the rebranded, check out their latest press release.

The B2B CMOs had a more positive outlook on the economy overall and their companies specifically.  Granted, even their outlook wasn’t particularly sunny, but it did show more significant gains from 2008 than the B2C results.  B2B marketers moved from 81% who felt less optimistic about the future in 2008 to 50% who felt less optimistic in 2009, while B2C marketers only moved from 71% to 67% on the same measure.

B2B marketers also reported plans to increase overall marketing spending by 3% in the next twelve months, with the largest percentage increases in Internet marketing activities and new product introductions.  B2C marketers plan to cut overall spending by as much as 4%, but do plan shifts of resources into the same focus areas as B2B marketers. 

B2B marketers also seem to recognize the value of good market intelligence at a time when each marketing dollar has to achieve the maximum possible ROI.  B2B firms reported increasing spending on market research and intelligence by nearly 4% this year, compared to B2C product marketers who are cutting their budgets by approximately that amount.

Across all segments there seems to be a stronger focus on developing and using consumer insights.  The professionals surveyed rated their firms’ performance in this area 35% higher than last year and have set goals even 20% higher for the next twelve months.  Clearly, top marketers are not discontinuing their efforts during the downturn; instead, they are channeling more of their resources towards making highly targeted appeals based on current research.  How does that compare to your strategy for 2009?  

To review the complete study results, check out the CMO Survey site that the Fuqua School of Business has developed.