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Web 2.0 Marketing Transformation (Part 2 of 2)
By Jim Arnold
Chief Marketing Officer at MetricsBoard
(Part 1)
How Do Your Social Media Plans Stack Up?
As Henry Ford said, "There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure." While I agree with the essence of his quote, if you can achieve success and avoid the failures, why not? That is why you should do your homework first before undertaking any new initiatives such as social media marketing.
There is a new tool recently developed and released by MetricsBoard that you should consider using as part of your pre-planning process. Designed for marketing and corporate communications professionals, MetricsBoard's Web 2.0 marketing maturity assessment tool easily and quickly measures an organization's maturity level associated with the use of Web 2.0 technologies, processes, and techniques. The application evaluates responses to a series of 100 yes or no questions with criteria related to the 11 Web 2.0 marketing best practice areas identified in part one of this column.
The assessment takes less than 10 minutes to complete, and the results report will compare your marketing position against your competition and provide insight covering the following areas:
- Web site effectiveness
- e-Marketing optimization
- Social media execution
- People, processes, and technology integration
- Overall marketing maturity level
The report also will recommend areas of opportunity that can help you develop a marketing roadmap in order to move from one maturity level to the next.
Be the Master of Your Own Destination
Web 2.0 and social media marketing represent a whole new set of channels to consider, and each vehicle should be viewed as another element of the overall push/pull marketing mix. Knowing when and where to best use these new tactics requires you to first determine where you are today, define where you want to go, and develop a roadmap to guide your transformation.
By taking a more strategic approach to determining the right combination of online strategies, as well as defining how they integrate with your offline programs, you will achieve greater results in increasing your marketing effectiveness, drive greater value for your business, and improve your ROI. Mastering the use of these new channels will be critical to your company's future go-to-market effectiveness.
Change is good. Web 2.0 is here, and Web 3.0 is just around the corner. Make marketing transformation work for you by taking time to plan for your success.
Jim Arnold is a marketing executive, consultant, and co-founder of MetricsBoard with more than 25 years experience in marketing, advertising, and strategic planning. He has held executive-level positions with American Airlines, Compaq, EDS, IBM, and other Fortune 500 companies. Jim has also held leadership positions with Y&R and McCann-Erickson, where he led the development of several award-winning brand campaigns. He has been a speaker for CMO Executive Summit Conferences, Forbes magazine, AMA, and other organizations. Jim is a winner of the ITSMA Gold Excellence "Sharpening Brand & Competitive Differentiation" marketing award, and he has earned honors from the BMA, AMA, and AAF-ADDY Awards.
