You have an integrated marketing plan all ready, all you need is the approval from the C-level crowd. How can you make them understand what it is that you’re trying to do, and why the tactics that you’re proposing are the best way forward? That’s the idea behind this session, moderated by Rebecca Lieb of Click Z.

The first presenter is Kevin Lee of Didit, he identified 5 C-Suite motivators \ emotional hot buttons:

1. Greed - Play on the opportunity cost of not implementing the plan, point out that Search is important for branding
2. Fear - CMO tenure is under 2 years on average. CMOs need a bright spot to point to regardless of overall macroeconomic factors.
3. Vanity - C level don’t really understand search (don’t use acronyms), so educate them (explaining the acronyms so you can then use them), not on tactics, but on the holistic approach to marketing, including search.
4. Loss - Failure to follow up other offline market with a search plan is a huge waste of the original media, and interest that you’ve generated.
5. Competitiveness -Compare your business to your competition, this is a huge motivator for your C-level executives (com-score provides data that you can use to generate this).

If working with multiple vendors, keep your eyes open, as they may not try to work together as well as they could, as they either are, or beieve that they are after the same budget. Push instead for information sharing, to shape the best integrated marketing plan as possible.

Next up Sage Lewis with a very energy filled presentation. He talked about a 6 month review that his had recently team performed, which concluded with a 30 minute presentation to the CMO. The CMO only wanted to know how many customers the project brought in, and how much it cost him, not a full blown presentation on the entire marketing plan. Sage’s mistake was to not identify the requirements for the CMO before the meeting.

6 reasons that people buy Search engine Marketing:

1. Profit and Gain - Talk conversion rates.
2. Fear of loss - What are competitors doing? Demonstrate the increasing cost of entry.
3. Pleasure - Offer complete solutions instead of package, hourly, etc.
4. Avoidance of Pain - Make everything easy and straightforward, under promise, over deliver.
5. Pride - Discuss the cutting edge part of your services.
6. Desire for Approval - Offer press releases featuring the executive’s online prowess.

Understand the person - think from their perspective.

C-level executives tend to have Dominant or Conscientious personalities, you should identify which of these personalities you’re working with, and adjust your pitch accordingly. Be aware that when presenting to multiple C level executives in a tribunal type system, you will most likely be pitching to each. In that case try to pitch to a single C level executive first, and get them to champion the integrated marketing plan.

The final presenter is Bill Parkes, he has 3 main points.

1. Make sure your strategy is aligned;

The alignment is between the business objectives and the appropriate KPIs, what are you trying to do? Creating brand awareness and lead generation require completely different strategies.

2. …your plan unbiased;

Use modeling and date to remain unbiased.

3. …and the website included;

Make your website an integral component of your plan.

Filed under: Education and Training, Email Marketing, In-House, PPC, SEO, Social Marketing on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 by Simon Heseltine |
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