For those of you who don’t know me, I am a HUGE Missouri fan; in 2009, I graduated from the University of Missouri and my immediate family has lived in Eureka, Missouri for the past seven years. You can say that Missouri is like a second home to me. So, you can imagine my feelings toward the recent tornados that have touched down in Missouri, particularly Joplin. The May 22nd tornado in Joplin killed more than 120 people and hundreds of homes were completely destroyed – reports are coming in of more than $3B worth of damage in Joplin alone!

Check out this video from inside a convenience store as the tornado actually hits the store, sucking out the glass in the process:

I read Mashable quite frequently, the top source for news in social and digital media, technology and web culture.  This past Monday, the featured article on Mashable’s home page was titled 4 Ways to Help Missouri’s Tornado Victims, which caught my attention immediately.

This article reminded me of how great social media really is and the ways it can actually help people in times of need. Mashable collected some ways you can support those in Missouri:

• Relief Spark, a non-profit focused on remodeling schools, turned its Twitter feed into a resource of information. Sample tweets direct first responders to meeting places and to posting what shelters have just opened their doors.
• Facebook pages including the Joplin, MO Tornado Recovery Page and Joplin, MO Survivors’ Page were created to help residents find loved ones and join in the recovery process.
• You can search Missouri-based Red Cross shelter centers to learn more about programs, needs, and how they are helping the tornado victims.
• OzarksFirst.com, a local community and new site, put together a resource with help hotlines, phone numbers, and web pages for volunteers and victims.

This Mashable article concluded with:

“Let us know in the comments how you plan on helping and any other good resources to get aid to Joplin.”

The comments are outstanding and this article was tweeted more than 2,000 times in less than 24 hours. The article ends with some great advice – with all charities and non-profits, make sure any site you visit is properly registered and trustworthy before blindly sending money. Make sure your help does the most good possible.

My thoughts go out to everyone impacted by this terrible disaster, but it’s comforting to know that there are so many online resources to help bring us all together – isn’t it amazing what social media can do?

B-E-E-F. This simple acronym was the mantra of the rec league basketball coach who taught me the fundamentals of shooting a free-throw. Balance. Eyes. Elbows. Follow-through. Each of these components is important to creating the fluid motion and focus needed to become a functional contributor to your team at the free throw line. While each component is important, none are more essential than the last one – follow-through.

In B2B marketing, follow-through is also paramount. A great idea is only as good as your ability to follow-through and execute. Ideas it seem, are easy to come by, but absent a clear plan of action, and a business’s ability to execute operationally, even the most attractive ideas become worthless.

How many times have you been in a meeting where a great idea is born? You see a lot of heads nodding yes. Everyone seems excited and on-board. You think the positive vibes swirling about the room will surly culminate into success for the company. But, inevitably, nothing happens. The good ideas become marker dust in the tray of the dry-erase board. Business as usual perseveres and the company continues to fall behind the marketing curve.

Companies that want to buck this trend, make sure they have the resources necessary to carry out those great ideas. They understand that if you take the effort to plan, and are looking to adopt new strategies and methodologies to engage prospects, that there is also a need execute on that plan. If you are like most other B2B organizations, you understand that it is easier said than done.

Too little time, too few resources and political turmoil make execution seem all but impossible. If these challenges sound familiar, then partner with a firm that is willing to spend the time learning about your complex products and services, that has a comprehension of leading marketing communications, sales support and customer engagement techniques, and who has an infrastructure with complementary resources you need to follow-through.

So is the take-away from this blog post really about something as trivial as execution of marketing plans and tactics? The simple answer is yes, but the challenge is to ask yourself how well you are really doing at executing on your best marketing ideas. Now that we’re almost half way through 2011, ask yourself whether you are just getting to the line, or if you are you actually finishing. While it seems like one of the simple ‘fundamentals’, the reality is that a lack of execution keeps a lot of B2B organizations standing idle. It is only by continuing to emphasize and master the fundamentals that you’ll be able to become a functional contributor to your company’s top line.

What great ideas are you lacking the resources to execute? Is it time to open up your file cabinet and start following-through on some of those plans and strategies you worked so hard at the end of last year to develop?

I am a diehard football fan.  No, not that American “throwball” game where the players wear 30 pounds of pads and throw around an odd-shaped ball wrapped in pig skin.  I’m talking about the beautiful game, fútbol, voetbal, footy, or as most Americans know it as, soccer.  As a football fanatic, I can’t help but get wrapped up in the drama, the passion and the obsession that encompasses every single match across the globe.  In the world of football, there is a new story to be told each and every day.  But football is not only captivating from a sporting viewpoint.  The beautiful game is also fascinating from a marketing and global branding perspective. 

The world is shrinking on a minute-by-minute basis these days, especially with the continual advances in technology.  Because of this, companies are placing a much stronger emphasis on establishing global brands that can compete across multiple markets.  But expanding your company into new markets isn’t as easy as it may seem.  Many successful firms, even firms like Wal Mart, have struggled to establish their brands in certain global markets. 

So where do you turn to find the key to expanding your firm’s identity across the globe?  Look no further than to professional football clubs.  Football clubs, large ones especially, embody everything that firms strive to achieve in developing a global brand.  They offer unique, marketable products that are in demand worldwide, they have strong revenue streams and in some cases can be very profitable, and most important of all, they have loyal customer bases that stick with their brand through thick and thin.  Take my favorite club, Liverpool FC, for example.  Liverpool FC is considered one of the world’s strongest football brands.  The city of Liverpool has a population of roughly 430,000 people.  Compare that to the approximate 42 million Liverpool FC fans worldwide and the proof is in the pudding.  

But Liverpool FC didn’t establish itself as a global powerhouse by coincidence.  It has taken many years of hard work to get to where it is today.  Although the success of a football club, like any sports team, is mostly determined by how well the team performs, clubs like Liverpool FC cannot rest on this fact and must continually adopt new marketing techniques to expand and foster growth of the brand.  Liverpool FC is a great example of a brand that has embraced fresh approaches to marketing.  The club’s web site hosts a discussion forum that encourages fans to collaborate and become a part of the club they idolize.  This is approach is being adopted by many companies and helps establish stronger brand loyalty by giving customers a voice in shaping the future of the brand. 

Liverpool FC also leverages social media in a very effective way, reaching out to fans and customers via the club’s Facebook page to its Twitter page.  The club also continues to reach its fans and customers through different mediums, including mobile devices.  In addition to the official LFC mobile apps, which provides fans with wallpapers, match updates, news feeds, etc., the club recently became the first football club in the world to launch a fully transactional mobile store. 

Branding initiatives like these are necessary for Liverpool FC if they want to compete with some of the club’s strongest competitors.  Like with any industry, creating a sustainable competitive advantage and providing more value than your competitors is the key to success, especially in global markets.  So the next time you need a reference for how to expand your brand globally, look no further than the beautiful game.

Images: Liverpool FC

Companies use e-mail marketing for all sorts of reasons – from engaging new prospects to staying in touch with existing customers.  If your inbox looks anything like mine, not a day goes by that you don’t have 10+ e-newsletters, webinar invitations or product updates in your inbox.

With so many companies using e-mail marketing as part of their marcom strategy, competition for mind share is high. So how can you ensure that your e-mail is a highly successful campaign tactic ? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Get to the point.  Be brief.  Use a landing page or microsite to share additional detail.
2. Highlight the benefit.  The subject line and the headline are great places to work in the benefit to get the audience engaged and lead to higher conversion.
3. Focus on one call to action.  Lead the audience to the action you want them to take instead of presenting choices. If you have more than one, consider testing them. 
4. Capture information.  If you are driving the audience to a landing page – offer something of value and capture information in exchange.  

A fellow Canyonite recently shared this highly engaging e-mail marketing example from M86 Security. The company gets your initial attention with a personalized e-mail subject line followed by an immediate benefit (e.g., Julie: Play “Crack the Cybercrime”, Win an iPad 2). Next, since they have your attention, they take you to a microsite where they ask four short questions that are relevant to internet security. After you answer the questions, they end with a form that requests you to confirm your contact information – which you absolutely want to do in case you are the lucky winner! They also take the opportunity to capture BANT information that can be used to qualify leads.

Gamification has been a part of the B2C industry for a while, but as you can see from the above example, B2B digital marketing strategies are starting to introduce the concept to engage prospects.

What was the last online game you played? What new digital strategies are you implementing in your marketing plan?

image credits: M86 Security