Wednesday, January 27, 2010

BearingPoint Social Media Marketing Case Study

Last Monday, I shared one of Strategic's new social media case studies (British Telecom) for marketers in the B2B and B2G area. It was a great example of how to use social media for business applications like supporting the large enterprise sales cycle and establishing a thought leadership position.

This week, I'd like to shine a spotlight on BearingPoint and its work in the Business-to-Government (B2G) market.

What do you think? I'd love hear your thoughts- leave a comment if you have a moment...

Situation

A large management consulting firm, BearingPoint had $1.3B in public services business alone. Yet competitors were even larger, with more sales reps and more resources.

Goal

BearingPoint wanted to align itself with Government 2.0, the U.S. government’s ongoing initiative to provide more services online. Ultimately, the company sought to penetrate new agencies for its consulting business.

Solution

Strategic helped BearingPoint develop a “New Thinking in Government” program that demonstrated leadership. Tactics included GovTwit, a directory of government executives using social media, which quickly became the “go to” site for finding such savvy execs.

In addition, a series of “New Thinking” videos featured BearingPoint executives in Washington D.C. locations familiar to the audience. Strategic linked viewership of the videos with a telemarketing campaign to key prospects.

Results

GovTwit quickly grew so popular that it became a traditional PR story in its own right, further boosting awareness of BearingPoint.

The “New Thinking” videos and telemarketing follow-up achieved their goal of opening doors to new prospects. The resulting business lunches yielded new relationships and new sales. The New Thinking video campaign has also been recognized as a finalist in three award categories by the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA).

Here is a link to the whole case study, along with links to the various web sites: http://gotostrategic.com/site/index.php/site/cases/bearingpoint/

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Healthcare and Social Media Survey 2010

(click here for a quick four question survey, hosted on surveymonkey.com)

Almost a year ago, I kicked off a survey designed to gauge the adoption of social media among healthcare professionals and the healthcare industry. (Read my original blog post here.)

In March 2010, I announced the full results and published them here. Here is what I wrote at the time:

We all can be susceptible to hype, so it's a good thing to try and gather empirical evidence from time to time to challenge one's notions. Even if you think you are in great shape and have the body of a 20 year old Olympic athlete, it's probably a good idea to step on a scale once in a while and confirm that this is actually true. -ahem-

Everyone is talking about the impact that social media is having on the healthcare industry. But is it really? There are plenty of patient and doctor social networks and lots of hospital twitter accounts. But is any of this obvious activity actually engaging these disparate audiences? Are we all confusing motion with progress?

The main takeaway last year was that the prognosis was negative for social media in the healthcare industry. As I found last year,


96 percent of respondents said the industry is not using social media enough to communicate, share information and engage with patients.

However, as we've learned, 12 months is a long time when I comes to the adoption of social media technologies. Has any of this changed? I'd sure like to know.

SO...I'd like to ask any readers of this blog post to click here for a quick four question survey, hosted on surveymonkey.com. When I get a decent sample size, I'll post the results, note any change in sentiment and we can talk about what needs to be done to drive adoption more effectively...

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Bill Wagner, CMO of Vocus Shares His Marketing Expertise

Hi all! Time for another episode of my periodic podcast series, Straight to the Point. I was really excited to host Bill Wagner. Bill is the Chief Marketing Officer of Vocus - a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management, helping organizations of all sizes fundamentally change the way they communicate with the media and the public, optimize their public relations efforts and measure their impact.

An accomplished marketing executive with more than 17 years of experience in marketing and sales management in the technology industry, Bill was generous enough to carve out some time to share his insight and experiences with me in a 20 minute Q&A session.

Click here for the show: http://bit.ly/6XPMeG

Or you can just listen to it here:




What do you think? Is Bill's approach to corporate marketing correct? Would you take a more aggressive approach to social media?

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Wrapup of CES 2010

Like most people, I can get a little gadget crazy. I almost never get to the point of actually shelling out real money, but I love to see and read about the latest, coolest gadgets. So last week was a fun week for me as I followed the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held in Las Vegas.

For those of you that don't know, according to Wikipedia, CES is
"The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a non-public trade show held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. At the show, many previews of products are introduced, and new products are announced. The show is held at the Las Vegas Convention Center with additional venues used for some specific technologies. The CES is considered one of the major technology-related trade shows, after Comdex was cancelled.The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a non-public trade show held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. At the show, many previews of products are introduced, and new products are announced. The show is held at the Las Vegas Convention Center with additional venues used for some specific technologies. The CES is considered one of the major technology-related trade shows, after Comdex was cancelled."

This year there were an especially cool assortment of new technologies and products announced. Here a few that caught my eye:

Lots of people have been talking about Google's mobile operating system, Android, over the past few months. But Do You Really Need a Microwave or a Washer-Dryer Running Android?

Samsung announced a new LCD TV, the C9000, that's "ultra thin." What does this mean? Oh, it's no thicker than a pencil. Really. No, seriously, check out the photo here if you don't believe me. I. Must. Have. One.

Except I might not and save up for Panasonic's new 152 inch 3D TV. Yep, a 152 inches. I have a 55 incher, I thought myself pretty cool when I bought it too.

Everything is going to be 3D TV this year. Olympics, the World Cup, etc. DirecTV announced three new 3D channels (which I'm sure they'll charge $10,000 a minute to watch).

In the end, I can't argue with Gizmodo. "If you only watch one four minute recap video of CES this year, make it Joel Johnson's four minute recap video of CES." It is a really good recap. LOL. I'll just stop here and let you just watch the video...

Monday, January 04, 2010

Happy New Year!! Five Trends to Watch

I'm back in the office working my way through two weeks of emails and I find myself excited. It's 2010- a year that for folks my age conjures images of Roy Scheider on a spaceship heading for Jupiter. It is the future and, space travel aside, there are so many exciting trends happening this year. I hope to share my viewpoint and the opinions of some other thought leaders here on this blog over the next 12 months.

Here are a five things I find fascinating:
  1. the integration of cloud computing, enterprise software and social networking to improve sales, marketing and PR business applications and create real, measurable value
  2. the continuing impact of mobile computing on businesses and their customers
  3. the economic recovery- will it be fast or sluggish
  4. will traditional media evolve and save themselves or will they continue to diminish in influence
  5. how will the mammoth health care reform bill impact the long delayed computerization and modernization of the healthcare industry
A lot of moving parts for one year! How will it all shake out? Stick around and we'll find out together...