Content Strategy: Think Utility Before Customization

For a company with dozens of product lines, numerous possible personas, and a global presence, developing content can be a daunting venture. The number of permutations for information types and distribution sources can be overwhelming. But before going crazy, you might be surprised to know that customers may not need as much personalization as you think – what they really want from content is utility.

IDC's 2015 IT Buyer Experience Survey examined the content requirements and preferences of various types of technology buyers. We compared buyers who work in the IT function with those in various business functions. We compared buyers of cloud solutions with traditional on-premise technology solutions. What we found surprised us.

IDC does recommend tailoring content for specific audiences. It is helpful for ease of consumption, for relevancy, and attractiveness. However, the buyer research told us that covering some basics was even more important.

• Highest priority – make sure content is complete. Buyer groups are much more similar than they are different. Buyers have one primary commonality – they are all human. Humans follow the same type of a decision-journey. All audience groups generally need the same kinds of information and mostly prefer similar sources to get that information.  The highest priority task should be to make sure the core information is available. Clearly and simply answer the buyers' questions for all stages of their decision-journey. Lack of critical information at a point when a buyer needs it will slow or stop journey progress.

• Make core buying information easily accessible through at least four communication channels. Those four channels are your website, your sales team, search, and some number of third party publications - preferably voiced by objective people. Your website is the buyer's default location for all information. Buyer's talk to sales people at the point when they really need detailed answers. If sales people don't have the answers, everyone loses. (Hint: a humble Q&A fact sheet for sales is super helpful).  Discovery is the name of game in the earliest stage of the decision-journey. Search is by far the number one tool for discovery and buyers also like to find ideas for improvement perusing both general business and special interest sites.

These content tasks may be more challenging than marketers expect.  Many of the buyer's questions are not answered by even the best thought leadership pieces or the most well-messaged product data sheet. For example, Product Service Reviews was the second most desired type of content at the earliest stage of the decision-journey – not something most marketers have at the tips of their fingers.

Before going through the (worthwhile) effort to customize content for different audiences, make sure you are covering the basics and serving your customers' the most important information needs.

More information is available in the IDC report, Categorizing the Content Needs of Different Buyer Types: IDC's 2015 2015 IT Buyer Experience Study (#258780) (Subscription required)

 

Read More

Audience Marketing: Death to the Product "Selfie"

Companies may not intend to be narcissistic. But they unintentionally produce a lot of "product selfies." Marketers start out right. They consider customer needs when answering the question, "Why buy my product?"  Then customer focus stops there. Most companies give only superficial attention to the context in which their audience will consume their message.  However, an IDC study finds that the situation is about to change as leading tech companies ramp audience marketing to a whole new level.

Customers perceive content to be self-serving when it talks only about the features and benefits of the product with insufficient effort to match these to the buyer's context. What's missing are the answers to the question, "How can we help the buyer consume this message? What does the buyer need to hear, understand, trust, and accept our value proposition?" When content is offered without a true audience filter, product messages have the same tiresome, annoying, self-centered demeanor as your teenaged niece's 15th selfie. No matter how cute she looks in her prom dress.
 

Isn't Audience Marketing Pretty Basic?

While IDC found that almost all tech companies surveyed use some degree of audience marketing (indeed, segmenting customers should be Marketing 101) only about 26% of them can be considered advanced — and even the advanced companies have significant opportunity for maturity.

What is changing in the most advanced companies is the depth, degree, and focus on the audience. Said one expert interviewed by IDC, "Buying a list of hospital CIOs and slapping a photo of a nurse on your website isn't vertical marketing."  Audience marketing requires today's marketing organization to take on a much larger and extra layer of work on behalf of the customer. Leading companies are stepping up to this task by dedicating audience-focused resources as an "ambassadors" for their customers.

Reversing the Effects of Sales Erosion

For B2B companies, it used to be salespeople who primarily filled the customer context gap. It was salespeople who were trained to listen for customer need. Salespeople translated the company offerings into something meaningful to the customer. Salespeople still have this role — but they can only perform it when they have the opportunity. And that opportunity continues to erode. IDC's annual IT Buyer Experience Study consistently reports that for the average IT purchase, buyers are nearly 50% of the way through their decision journey before talking with sales. The increased percentage of buyer engagement through digital communication channels has also eroded the critical customer context cushion.

Audience marketing is the function that replaces this cushion. By devoting staff and program dollars as audience ambassadors, marketers will identify this gap and execute appropriate programs to fill it.

What Do Audience Marketing Leaders Do Different?

The most distinguishing factors between companies advanced in audience marketing compared to average or beginner companies are the following:

Appointing an Audience Marketing Leader: Advanced companies are about twice as likely as average or beginner companies to have a named leader in charge of audience marketing. When a company puts a leader in charge of an initiative and makes a practice a corporate-wide mandate, the culture starts to change in a big way. Audience marketing gets visibility. Metrics get put in place. People begin to get recognized and awarded for skills learned and for achievements. Investments and resources are allocated.

Branching out to explore many audience marketing strategies: IDC examined the popularity of various audience marketing strategies and found that advanced companies use a broader variety than average or beginners. Overall, segmentation by Functional Role (C-level, IT, HR director, etc.) is the most popular strategy and is used moderately or extensively by 100% of advanced companies and over 80% in the other groups. Vertical Industry is a close second. Buyer behavior segmentation is the hot, up-and-coming strategy — but it is more difficult and more sophisticated than the other segmentation strategies studied and thus is used the most infrequently by companies at all levels. 

However, advanced companies are moving ahead strongly, and IDC expects to see use of behavioral segmentation increase significantly in the next few years.


This blog first appeared on LinkedIn and is a summary excerpt from the IDC research report Audience Marketing: Replenishing Customer Context authored by Kathleen Schaub #257372. Subscription required.

Read More

Chief Digital Officers: Bridging the Innovation Gap Between the CIO and CMO

The chief digital officer (CDO) is no longer an exotic, quixotic, flash-in-the-pan role. In some of the world's leading brands, the CDO is now the general manager of a large digital business unit with significant revenue targets reporting to the CEO. This is one of the fascinating conclusions from IDC's latest report on the CDO role based on interviews with CDOs from: Caterpillar, CVS Health, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Meredith Corp., SAP Digital, Travelex, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Under Armour.

The title of this study should in no way insinuate any lack of innovation on the part of CIOs or CMOs. Both roles are managing digital transformations that are reshaping everything about their organizations. Those efforts can be all consuming, so some brands are establishing the CDO to lead strategic innovation. Free from the operational KPIs of the CMO and infrastructure demands of the CIO, the CDO is expected to invent the digital growth engines of the future.

Information and software-based companies are moving into services and support areas across industries. They are bringing new business models based on data services, sharing economies, and mobility much faster than established companies can. This is a huge threat as these areas are major revenue growth opportunities in industries that may be in low single-digit growth mode. Legacy brands typically don't have the core competencies in software development or data and analytics needed to bring information-based products to market. In addition, cultures at many large enterprises are not used to the extreme cadence of digital business. As a result, leading companies are not only driving internal innovation and developing their own talent, they are investing and acquiring start-ups.

Based on our interviews, we have developed three archetypes for today's CDO:

• The digital GM: Reports to the CEO and leads the establishment and/or transformation of a significant business.
• The digital Disrupter:Reports to the EVP or equivalent and leads a dynamic team charged with driving product and service innovation and cultural transformation.
• The digital Evangelist:Reports a level or two down but is highly visible to the executive level. Leads a small team designed to raise digital IQ throughout the organization.

In practice, the CDO role spans a spectrum of overlapping responsibilities. The digital GM also drives innovation and raises the digital IQ of the entire enterprise. The digital disrupter is also in charge of raising digital and social adoption across the company. The digital evangelist is more of a support role that helps senior leaders drive digital transformation.

Two key questions every company should ask itself during the annual executive planning cycle are:

1. If we wanted to completely disrupt our industry, what kind of company would we start?
2. How do we become that company?

The executives running the companies profiled in this study have asked themselves these questions in one form or another. They may not have all the answers yet, but they have dedicated themselves to finding out before they get "Appled," "Ubered," or "Airbnbed." New mantras for the digital era are:

• The only way to control the pace of change is to set it — that's the primary mission of the CDO
• Always be disrupting
• Follow the money: find out where the VC money is going in your industry and watch those companies closely, partner with them, and invest in them or buy them if you can

For more information about this report please contact me: gmurray(at)idc(dot)com.

Read More

The 4 big reasons you need an ABM strategy right now

There are four significant trends making account-based marketing (ABM) a major focus for B2B marketers:

1. Rising customer expectations are the most disruptive trend in business today. Customers no longer make categorical distinctions between their personal and professional brand relationships. They expect all companies to provide highly valuable personalized experiences all the time. Companies that differentiate their customer relationships on the basis of account-specific insights and responsiveness raise customer expectations and create competitive advantage. Expectations are set very early in the buyer's journey long before they interact with Sales, so marketing plays a crucial role in demonstrating value add from the very first touch.
2. Customer acquisition costs have changed dramatically. Saturation is a problem for many technology product categories, especially second platform solutions in the enterprise arena. As segments near or reach saturation, new customer acquisition costs soar and it becomes imperative to more efficiently find new customers, get the most out of existing customer relationships, and defend them from competitors. The scale efficiencies of marketing vs. sales are critical to accomplishing these objectives cost-effectively.
3. Subscription revenue models dramatically extend the time it takes to recoup cost of sales. Ideally, revenue and profit increase over time, but that is dependent on retention and expansion of the relationship which require constant care and nurturing. As a result, marketing must play a central role in optimizing the ongoing customer relationship.
4. Technology has enabled an increasing number of account based marketing program components to be scaled beyond a small group of select customers. Online communities, micro sites, personalized content, crowd sourced product features, and other digital elements are easier to offer at scale. As a result, they enable companies to gain additional margin and raise expectations in segments beyond their largest customers. These are the tools the digital marketer must leverage for delivering value to the account.

Despite its name Account Based Marketing is not an exclusively marketing function, far from it. At its most mature it is part of a larger program that coordinates all customer facing resources (from marketing, sales, finance, fulfillment, product development, service, support and partner organizations.) Prior to getting there, it can take a number of different forms depending on resource commitment from content curation, to verticalization, to sales enablement. Regardless of the stage of your ABM activities, the ultimate goal remains the same: to deliver a highly differentiated, deeply customized, supremely successful experience for every account. When executed well, ABM is a vital tool for increasing customer lifetime value and raising the bar for competitors.

Contact me to request more information on IDC's Account Based Marketing Maturity Model - gmurray(at)idc(dot)com. 

Read More

Voice Dream Writer: Word Processing Plus a Whole Lot More

Voice Dream has become a well-known name in the assistive technology community because of Voice Dream Reader: a text-to-speech reader available for iOS devices. Now the developer has released a new app called Voice Dream Writer which aims to support writers with special needs. Voice Dream Writer has features that can benefit people with a wide range of needs including people with dyslexia and people who are blind or visually impaired. People without disabilities can also benefit from the app. For example, english language learners could benefit from spoken feedback and other features offered by Voice Dream Writer. 

The text-to-speech feedback is designed to help writers find mistakes in their writing. The style of text-to-speech reading can even be changed to help writers focus either on spelling and grammar, or on content and organization. The app also offers easy access to an outline view that can help with organizing a document. Other features allow users to look up words phonetically or look up words by its meaning. 

The text-to-speech feedback can be accessed as users type so they can verify that a word or sentence was entered as they intended. This helps writers identify words or phrases that looked correct, but upon hearing them read aloud sound incorrect. The app will also read back text that has been dictated to help users insure that their voice was transcribed correctly.

When it is time to review a document, Voice Dream Writer includes some very thoughtful features for editing. The app includes two customizable proof reading modes that use text-to-speech to help with the editing process. The first is designed to help writers edit the content of their document. In this mode words are read back using text-to-speech sound natural and smooth: as they would when reading a book with Voice Dream Reader. This allows writers to focus on the content and organization of their document. 

The second mode reads text back in a somewhat choppy manner which allows users to focus their document at the micro level. This mode is ideal for editing spelling a grammar because the lack of flow with the text-to-speech voice makes it easier to focus on each word rather than the overall content of the text.

Each proofreading mode is customizable with options to announce misspelled words, spell homophones, and speak punctuation and capitalization.

Similar to Voice Dream Reader, Voice Dream Writer includes the ability to change the visual style of the app. Font size, character and line spacing, margins, text color, and background color can all be changed. Additionally, users can change the text to speech voice and speaking rate to match their preferences. Text-to-speech voices purchased in Voice Dream Reader are available in the Writer without an additional purchase. The pronunciation dictionary also syncs between the Writer and the Reader if both are installed on the same device.

Text files can be imported from iCloud Drive or supported third party services such as Google Drive or Dropbox. Unfortunately, users can only import text files and not Microsoft Word files. Documents can be exported as HTML, RTF, Microsoft Word, or Apple Pages format.

Click read more below to continue to read the review of Voice Dream Writer. Some of the most innovative and helpful features will be described below.

Some of Voice Dream Writers most helpful features can be found in the right sidebar menu. First is a dictionary which can read back the definitions of a word (This feature is currently not available in Voice Dream Reader without using VoiceOver). The second tool allows users to enter a word spelled phonetically to find the correctly spelled option.  For example, if I typed "receat," it   might suggest the word "receipt," as an option. Unlike some other apps, these suggestions are not made based on the context of the surrounding text. Users can tap on each suggestion to hear the word spoken aloud. This feature is extremely helpful for poor spellers, especially when they are in a situation where using dictation would be inappropriate or unavailable. 

The last feature on the right sidebar is the option to look up a word by meaning. For example, if I was writing about organizations which donate money to charities, but could not think of the word "philanthropic" I could search "donate money" and "philanthropic" would be one of the suggestions. This can help reduce instances of a word being at the tip of your tong, but you can quite think of the word.

In the left sidebar menu is an outline view. Users can select to view an outline of their document by heading, paragraph, or sentence. Users can then simply rearrange paragraphs or headings by dragging and dropping. This is helpful for the planning stages of writing as users can plan different paragraphs and fill in the content after they are finished planning.

All formatting in Voice Dream Writer is done using markdown. This means that all editing is done in plain text, but symbols inserted before or after words cause the words to be formatted when the file is exported. For example, adding a # or * before a word will cause that word to be formatted as a heading or as italic font when exported. This system has some positives and some negatives over conventional formatting that is found in Microsoft Word and Apple's Pages. 

For blind users this system can be helpful because the special characters such as # and * will be spoken allowing them to quickly recognize when a portion of text is bold or italics. In other word processors italics and bold text may be read normally making it more difficult for blind users to determine how the document is formatted. However, for sighted users this system may be unfamiliar and therefore more difficult. It would be nice if Voice Dream Writer had both the option of using markdown and for editing in rich text and allowed the users to decide which option worked best for their needs.

Finally, Voice Dream Writer includes a new innovation which improves the text selection and cursor movement process for VoiceOver users. These tasks are normally difficult for VoiceOver users. VoiceOver is a built in screen reader available on iOS devices that allows blind and visually impaired users to use gestures in order to use their device. When VoiceOver is enabled, Voice Dream Writer automatically adds three buttons to the bottom left of the screen. The first button controls the cursor and accepts a combination of multi-figure taps and swipes to move the cursor forward and backwards through the document. The second button adjusts how much the cursor moves with each swipe of the first button. This button allows the cursor to move letter-by-letter, word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence or paragraph-by-paragraph. The third button allows users to easily select text and then copy or cut that text. This system of selecting text and moving the cursor with VoiceOver is much faster than the method used in other apps and is a major benefit of Voice Dream Writer for VoiceOver users.

Voice Dream Writer is available for all iOS devices running iOS 8 and higher. While iPhone support is certainly convenient when writing a quick email, the iPad's large screen seems best suited for longer writing. Users who want to use the app for writing long pieces will probably wish to use a Bluetooth keyboard for faster typing. People using Bluetooth keyboards will also enjoy the ability to use keyboard shortcuts with the app. More keyboard shortcuts will be added in future versions as well. For example, in the future users with Bluetooth keyboards will be able to enter a key combination to quickly find all misspelled words.

In all Voice Dream Writer has many superb features that can help writers with a wide variety of needs. Hopefully rich text editing and the ability to import Word documents will be added in a future version. Voice Dream Writer seems like it would also make a great Mac app and hopefully someday people will be able to use these features on their Macs. Even without rich text editing and Mac support, Voice Dream Writer seems amazingly polished and well thought through for a version 1.0 app. To purchase Voice Dream Writer for $10 on the App Store click here. The app will be on sale for $8 until Sunday, February 1, 2015.

If you’re still unsure about the apps features watch the video below in which Winston Chen, the developer of Voice Dream Reader and Voice Dream Writer, walks viewers through his latest app.

Read More

A New Year's Fitness Plan for Your CMO (Content Marketing Operations)

 

Over the past few months, IDC has worked to define "Content Marketing" and to espouse its vital role in the execution of marketing campaigns.

If you're not on-board yet as to the necessary role of Content Marketing -- read no further !  But if you are, your next step is to assess your operational readiness for Content Marketing Operations. In a nutshell: does your marketing organization have the people, the tools, the process competency, and the leadership mandate, to roll-out Content Marketing capability across campaigns and product-lines?

 

IDC defines Content Marketing Operations as: "The execution of repeatable and coordinated processes to plan, create, develop, curate and distribute, and maintain the content assets and properties used for content marketing."

 

Using IDC's new MaturityScape framework, here is a 5-step model to help you assess where you are on the arc of "CMO" competency:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stage 1: Ad Hoc — Business as Usual

Description: Business as usual — Content marketing does not exist. Assets are created by marketing, but they are mainly product marketing and corporate marketing assets and very rarely content marketing assets (refer to Figure 2). There is no strategy, governance, or process around asset creation, and most activities exist in silos of execution.

Business impact: Marketing, and in turn the entire company, is misaligned with the buyer. There is a lack of successful engagement with the marketplace, which leads to diminishing bookings and, in marketing's case, defunding.

Stage 2: Opportunistic — Houston, We Have a Problem !

Description: Houston, we have a problem  !  Marketing acknowledges that content marketing as a function must be developed and that it must be differentiated from product marketing. Movement begins around content marketing, mainly focusing on the initial steps to understand and organize around the topic. Efforts are made to assess what assets currently exist within the organization.

Business impact:The marketing organization begins the process of reorganizing around content marketing; this includes new executives, new titles, and new initiatives. Significant "wins" do not occur in this stage, but initial momentum toward change can be observed.

Stage 3: Repeatable — Content Marketing Works!

Description: Content marketing works! — Strategy and governance (rules, tools, and schools) take form. With growing sponsorship and results, content marketing is well on its way to becoming a respected and important part of the marketing organization. Tangible results are being felt and, more importantly, seen from content marketing.

Business impact:The marketing organization and the company as whole begin to see their messaging and voice be accepted in the marketplace. Through data, marketing is able to decipher between effective and ineffective content marketing assets.

Stage 4: Managed — Content Marketing Is Job Number 1

Description: Content marketing is job number 1 — Content marketing is globally accepted as an important part of the marketing organization. The CMO or head of marketing is fully aware and supportive of content marketing operations efforts. Formalized staffing processes and budgets are in place.

Business impact:Marketing is able to use content marketing to show pipeline attribution. The content marketing assets produced are well received by the buyers and influencers in the market. The company has a leading voice.

Stage 5: Optimized — Content-Driven Success

Description: Content-driven success — Content marketing is an integral part of every line of business and each region's marketing activities. The corporate center of excellence (COE) works in harmony with all marketers, and marketers hold the COE in high regard. Content marketing is recognized as one of the most important parts of not only the marketing department but the entire company.

 

Business Impact:Marketing is able to use content marketing to show direct revenue attribution and can utilize content marketing assets to predict business impact prior to the asset going live. Content marketing operations has created efficiencies and cut costs from the overall marketing budget. The company is seen as a thought leader on content marketing.

 

IDC's future outlook is that Content Marketing -- as much as it has been a buzzword of the past few years -- will eventually be so fundamental to marketing execution that it will lose its current "star" status. And, if your marketing organization is not moving up this maturity curve in 2015...you may be putting many other elements and practices of your entire marketing execution at risk.

 

 

Read More

The New CMO's First Hundred Day Playbook

In a 2014 study, IDC found that 51% of CMOs at tech companies have held their position for fewer than two years. We predict many new CMOs again this year. How can a new executive start right? IDC interviewed 10 wise, seasoned, CMOs for a glimpse into their first hundred days playbook.

Transitions are vital moments when even the smallest executive actions have a disproportionate effect on outcomes. It's a risky time for a new CMO who starts with neither the knowledge nor the alliances necessary for success. Fail to build momentum during the first hundred days, and a CMO will struggle for the rest of his/her (probably short) tenure. Job loss is not the only blow that may be suffered by a poorly conducted start. Many more CMOs fail to reach their full potential in their current position, thus putting a promising career on a slower track.

Success in the first hundred days, on the other hand, sets the stage for a brilliant performance. The 10 heads of marketing interviewed by IDC collectively recommended these six plays.

Play #1: Understand your real job.

Marketing is very closely tied to business context. A new CMO must assess quickly what work is really needed. Does the company need more awareness, a brand refresh, or a full product portfolio transformation? Each of these strategies requires a radically different approach from marketing.

Peter Isaacson, Demandbase: "What are the business goals of the company and the expectations for marketing? What are the business priorities and where is the company going? Get this straight from the mouth of the CEO. What is expected of you? Are there any unrealistic expectations that you need to set straight [such as] build a new category in the first two months? Get on the same page right from the beginning."

Elisa Steele, Jive Software:  "There is a big opportunity and a big problem. No CMO in any company has exactly the same responsibility [as another CMO]. You know what a CFO does, what sales does, HR, etc. CMOs are different. Are they responsible for communications? Strategy? Product? Customer service? CEOs can create a spec of their own definition. But that requires a very mixed pool of candidates and it's difficult to understand what any candidate's power skill needs to be."

Greg Estes, NVIDIA: "Building an executive team is like building a sports team. Different players are good at different things. [CEOs] might find they hired a great shortstop when they needed a good first baseman."

Play #2: Speed up your learning curve.

The amount of information that needs to be absorbed in the first hundred days is prodigious. It's best to approach learning in a direct and methodical way.

Paul Appleby, BMC: "To remain relevant, our number 1 priority must be to drive a new level of engagement with our customers. We are headquartered in Houston, Texas. However, our customers are based globally. As such, we need to engage with them globally. In my first three months, I travelled the globe and met with over 500 of our largest customers to understand the dynamic impact of digital disruption on their businesses. I also met with our teams in every major city where we operate. We listened and pivoted our engagement model, market positioning, and service delivery model based on what we heard."

Play #3: Get the right people on the bus.

Waste little time in building a crackerjack team. Make tough decisions on whether existing team leaders should stay, go, or be repositioned. Make great hires quickly, too, as leaders will need people to achieve early success.

Christine Heckart, Brocade: "First, get the right people in the right job. I meet everyone on the team if I can. For key people, it's one on one — all direct reports, all top talent, all people in key roles. I meet the rest in group reviews at least once. [In these group reviews] everyone gets two to three hours to present — What are you proud of? What's working, what's not working, what's broken? Think of the future, what does success look like? In parallel, I run a change management process. The result is a new org structure, roles described, a people plan (gaps, promotions, etc.). You would be shocked at how often I've found that attention to the right organization has been ignored."

Jonathan Martin, EMC:  "The first few weeks in any role should be spent assembling a new team and listening. In the first conversations, nothing makes sense, but after a while you see the same challenges. You need to be creative about finding solutions. With a large global team, it's likely that someone somewhere has solved those problems. Use the scale of the organization. Raise up the super capable in the regions. I found a social expert in India and a guy in Italy who used Twitter to set up CEO meetings. Then, overcommunicate. I tweet. I blog internally. I hold a TV town hall once or twice a month."

Play #4: Make a visible difference.

Early wins create momentum. Promote early wins widely and loudly so that the CMO and the marketing team are seen as the heroes.

Andy Cunningham, Avaya: "You need a few small wins. Before you can get the big jobs done, you need to earn your credibility. During the first hundred days, you are mostly focused with getting the organization to a place where they will follow you. The small things must be meaningful. Earn your way into the fold. Then you have a chance to get the big jobs done. The more the organization sees you having an impact, the more likely they are to take you under their wing.

"You have to pick the right initial wins. For example, building the funnel or repositioning might be really important, but it will be months before the company sees the impact. At Avaya, I focused on the corporate narrative first because it was really needed, progress could be made fast, and having it would be transformative. It was and now I can focus on longer-term issues."

Play #5: Expedite key initiatives with operational rigor.

Identify the five-to-eight must-do initiatives that will create the needed business value that the CEO really wants. Institute a culture of operational rigor. Overcommunicate. A mantra, such as "Jive Forward", can to be a container for the change that is coming and will energize the company.

Christine Heckart, Brocade: "You've got to think big — most companies are looking for a new positioning. But you need to start small. It's hard to get the whole thing done on the first turn of the flywheel. Identify the small number of things that will establish marketing as the growth engine. Establish a rolling two-quarter plan and keep relooking at how it's working."

Play #6: Develop critical alliances.

CMOs will never be successful without forging alliances and coalitions to support initiatives. The CEO is the most important, alliance. His/her support will make or break the CMO's success. Alliances are also needed with the CFO, the head of sales and, especially in this era of digital transformation and data-driven marketing, the CIO.

Lynn Vojvodich, Salesforce.com: "Build relationships with key stakeholders. What are the common objectives? Where is the ROI? These are the areas that need transparency. Everyone feels they don't have enough resources. It's important to be up front about marketing investment and performance so that people understand why necessary trade-offs are made."

More recommendations for the road ahead.
IDC believes that great CMOs will continue to seek, and to be poached, for plum opportunities. These shifts will set in motion a domino effect. Therefore, CMO turbulence will continue. Turbulent environments favor the brave, the persistent, the resilient, and the lucky. While there is no checklist for success, IDC recommends that CMOs and CMO wannabes keep their eyes on the changing landscape and their resumes and networks current.

Kevin Iaquinto, JDA: "The turnover issue is all because of the pace of change. As I look at my own career, I have been in seven different tech firms. I've been acquired four times! This type of change inevitably means change in the management team including the CEO and, following that, other C-suite executives."

Lisa Joy Rosner, Neustar: "This is the golden age of marketing. With the constant innovation of new technology the focus has centered on the CMO. Some CMOs jump to a different company because they want to continue to innovate. 'I've just built out my stack and I want to do it again based on what I learned and with newer/better tools.' This is how they get recruited away. There are very few CMOs who really 'get' digital — so they are in demand. If you are really, really, good, your work is visible and the headhunters call — then each time you move, you get a new opportunity to build a better team and you get 'more tools in the sandbox' to build the perfect marketing machine."

Read More

Keeble Keyboard for iPad: Flexible Text Input for Users with Special Needs

Keeble is a virtual keyboard for iPad made by AssistiveWare. The app is only available in English for iPads running iOS 8 and above. As a result of new features available in iOS 8 the Keeble keyboard can be used in almost every app on the iPad including mail, Safari, and messages. Keeble gives users a number of customization options to make text input easier for users with special needs such as motor challenges, dyslexia, and other disabilities.

One option available is the ability to change the appearance of the keyboard. Users can change the color of the keyboard which could be helpful for users with visual impairments. The higher contrast colors can be more easily seen compared to the white and gray colors of the default iOS keyboard. The layout can be change from a QWERTY layout to an ABC layout if desired.

Keeble also includes word predication to speed up typing; especially for Switch Control users. The word predication features is slightly more advanced than iOS 8's built-in word prediction. Keeble allows users to change the number of predictions offered above the three offered by the default iOS 8 keyboard.

Keeble also allows users to change how the keys respond to taps and presses. This is especially useful for users with motor challenges that may cause accidental taps or presses on unwanted keys. Hold duration can be set to change how long a key must be held before that character is entered. With this option enabled, quick accidental taps will not be registered. Additionally, the backspace repeat can be customized to avoid accidentally deleting text. A "select on release" option is also available which will enter text on release of a key instead when the key is pressed.

The last customization option allows users to turn on spoken feedback of the text they type. Feedback can be given letter by letter, word by word, and/or sentence by sentence. This feature allows people with dyslexia or poor spellers to confirm that what they words they think entered are the words that they hear being spoken back to them using text-to-speech. While this feature is useful it can only be enabled and disabled via the apps settings. If there was an option to turn on and off auditory feedback directly, it would be much easier to access the feature when needed and disable the feature when not needed. Users can totally turn off the iPad's speakers but this will also mute all other audio output. There is space on the bottom right of the number and symbol entry keyboard where quick access to this setting could be added.

The Keeble app costs $15 on the App Store. To download the app click here. Click read more below to view screenshots of the Keeble keyboard.

Read More

Call for Participation: IDC's 2015 Cloud Marketing Barometer Survey

IDC's CMO Advisory Service is excited to announce that we are breaking new ground with a survey focused on marketing benchmarks within Cloud Software and Digital Services companies. This is brand new research for us, and an opportunity for your company to help IDC define the next set of important marketing KPIs.

 If you are a marketing executive at a cloud software company or within a cloud software business unit, this survey and the corresponding results will help you identify how to set your organization up for success.

What are the benefits?

• A complimentary copy (value of $3,500) of the resulting report, which will define new KPIs for Cloud marketing organizations.

• An invitation to a client-only telebriefing featuring key data and essential guidance from this study.

Who Should Participate?

Marketing executives in a position of responsibility for the worldwide marketing practices related to cloud or digital services at the company-level or these product line(s), or business unit(s).

How Long Should it Take?

Depending on several factors, as quick as 15 minutes!

What's the Deadline?

Tuesday, Feb 13, 2014

How do I Participate?

To assure the highest data quality we carefully screen our participants. Please email Rich Vancil (Rvancil (at) IDC (dot) com for the survey link.

Confidentiality: All answers will be kept confidential within IDC's CMO Advisory Service and all data will be aggregated for the purposes of trend analysis. IDC has executed similar surveys for over 12 years with participation from the largest public tech companies ranging to pre-IPO companies. Confidentiality is of the upmost importance and has never been breached.

Read More

Apple's New App Return Policy in Europe is a Big Deal for VoiceOver Users

Recently, Apple implemented a new 14 day no questions asked return policy in many European Union (EU) nations according to 9to5mac. The new policy allows customers to receive a full refund on App Store purchases within 14 days of receipt.

While this new policy is an important safeguard for all consumers, it is a major development for App Store customers who rely on accessibility features, such as VoiceOver, in order to use their devices. VoiceOver is a built in screen reader that allows blind and visually impaired users to use iOS devices and Macs.

While browsing the App Store, it is extremely difficult for VoiceOver users to determine if the app they are interested in purchasing is accessible. This often leaves the customer playing a guessing game with their money. For example, without the return policy a VoiceOver user who wanted to purchase a $20 app would need to hope that the app was accessible with VoiceOver otherwise their $20 purchase would be useless. Even if the app is inaccessible and unusable refunds are typically not granted.

The new policy allows VoiceOver users to download apps that may or may not be accessible without the risk of wasting money on an app that is totally useless for them. If the user downloads an app that is not accessible, they can simply return the app within two weeks and receive a full refund. In effect, this allows for a two week trial period for apps which will allow users to see if the app fits their needs. For VoiceOver users within the EU this will take the guesswork out of purchasing apps.

Unfortunately, the new return policy is only available in certain EU countries and is not applicable to customers in other countries. Hopefully, Apple will extend the policy to all customers regardless of which country they are in. Until that time, users in other countries will have to hope that the apps they are downloading are accessible.

Read More