Thursday, 5 December 2013
Juniper Networks' EMEA Partner Marketing Day Two Review
So we received lots of positive feedback about day one of the first Juniper Networks' EMEA Partner Marketing Academy, people wanted to know when the next event was happening and they hadn’t even attended the second day! Wow! This says something when people are interested in attending another event even when the current event is still in progress – what a positive reaction! The following highlights the best bits of day two:
Richard Robinson of Google kicked off the second day with some pretty amazing statistics he said there are now 2.4 billion people connected online, that’s amazing considering there are just over 7 billion people on planet earth. With this connected world every company, every person is now a media owner. We all create our own content and distribute across the content networks and social channels. Richard also said that there are 100 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. So, bearing this in mind third party content creation is a big challenge for brands and how they utilise and verified this content is challenging. It is impossible to keep up with the flow of content created without investing in resources and effective monitoring tools. I loved this thought from Richard “if a picture is worth a 1000 words, then how much is a two minute video worth?” This is really thought provoking and we should be thinking about putting a value on the marketing content we create. If this is my only take away from Richard’s session, then video has to be fundamental to content creation. I would urge our partners to think about inserting video into their marketing communications, it is perfect for getting across messages and is so effective in delivering content.
The second part of Richard’s presentation was focused on how more emotional elements are now coming through in B2B buying. As B2B marketers we need to think about emotional connections in our marketing communications. What was most surprising was he said that the emotional connection with B2B brands is much stronger than with B2C brands due to risk, which means our professional reputation and jobs are sometimes on the line when making critical business decisions. Essentially as guardians of brands we need to try to make that emotional connection with our customers and prospects and think beyond the brand and more about the people element, which is often neglected
He closed his session at #JNPRMA by reminding us to think about feature and function within the customer journey.
Next up was Bill Crowley of TechTarget talking about integrating sales and marketing through social media. He stressed that alignment is key to being a successful social enterprise. He advised assigning sales representatives and SEs to engage with customer and prospects within the popular social networks and industry communities, eventually this should become part of daily work practice. It is important to convert sales teams to be digitally engaged with their prospect and customers, who can communicate directly in non-marketing jargon, speak.
He then continued to say that buyers are demanding different buying experiences from vendors and the channel; there is a need for appropriate content to be created. Although, you need to take on board that it is not just about building content for the buyers’ journey, you must stitch that journey together for maximum effectiveness. By using prospect and account behaviour to guide priorities and communication strategy. Therefore those vendors and partners who get to the intersection of vision, value and solution first will win that market.
After the morning presentations we then broke into workshops for the partners to learn and share their unique experiences on Social/Digital Marketing, Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing. The partners were buzzing with lots of thoughts and ideas during these sessions.
Finally, Lutz Klaus then closed the event and thanked the presenters, organisers, production staff and attendees for making the gathering a success. He announced that he looked forward to seeing everyone at the next Partner Marketing Academy.
Wow, what a packed two days! I’ll post a blog shortly on some of the feedback I have received from those who attended this event in Berlin. Watch this space for more information!
Juniper Networks' EMEA Partner Marketing Academy Day One Review
First up was Lutz Klaus introducing the event and setting the scene for the day firing up our partners for a packed day of insightful content.
Then Natalie Horne of PrimeDecision spoke about using behavioural science in B2B, and to take the understanding of how the mind works, then utilise for business. This can be done very simply by making small tweaks to marketing messages, which then can create a big impact. She urged people to experiment and make improvements to your marketing delivery, which would in turn see differences in how people interacted with the brand. Making behaviour centric to your marketing strategy would unlock the holy grail of your customer and prospects behaviours. It could be simply just utilising your social media channels more, which would in turn provide behavioural visibility. She concluded that the buyer has much more control over the buying process with Social Power! Sales are now engaged much later. So, take up social and gain behavioural insight into what your customers and prospects are saying.
Next up was Martina Kreisch, who tantalised the audience with a chocolate experiment. Her simple experiment proved that people prefer their imagination over reality and that if you guide people with the right words to can setup attention, attraction, desire and interest in your brand.
Her simple formula for creating success is creating high impact marketing coupled with emotional selling will deliver success for your organisation.
My personal favourite learning from Martina’s session was the difference in male and female thinking. She explained that men naturally think about chance, whereas women naturally think about risk. So, you need to think about this in your message and tailor to both types of thinking.
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Dave reminded the audience that users drive the discussion, and as marketers we need to utilise this in our communications. This will be something we will be working on next year.
Next up was my fellow West Midlander, Paul Gainham proving he can still get down with the kids at 28 years old! Yes, you heard it here first. It is official Paul is 28! J That got the audience’s interest. J He proceeded to say Juniper is shaping and securing the market. With our SDN offering this fuses apps and the network together. SDN is emerging and as an industry we need to develop new skills to maximise our joint opportunity. From a marketing perspective, 2014 is the year for to ‘land’ SDN in terms of use cases, business value propositions and education / understanding – those that get to the intersection of vision, value and solution will prevail.
Lutz shared two trends that are growing which will particularly impact enterprise, first he said that data centres are now 60% virtualised if not more and secondly that more companies are investing in the cloud. These create big opportunities for Juniper and its partners.
He also highlighted that Juniper Networks is the only vendor that is Microsoft Lync certified for switching and wireless. So if you want a seamless switching and wireless solution that is Microsoft Lync certified, then Juniper is your vendor of choice.
Paul Trotter of IDG followed Juniper’s IT Marketing legends and shared the latest IDG customer engagement research. He pointed out that as marketers we need to think about audience acquisition, focus less on the brand and build trust by focusing on benefits and features. And that content needs to be adapted to fit device preference; mobile, tablet and desktop including usage times of day. According to the IDG research ITDMs share content via email first and then the phone, the social networks in order; LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, with Pinterest and Social Bookmarking the last choices where they share content with their peers.
The top three challenges for communicating with the ITDM are that there is a lack of truly independent unbiased information available. They received too much marketing messaging and jargon. And they are unsure of what are trusted sources. It is a minefield for the ITDM and how they sift through what content is relevant to them. As marketing professionals it is essential that we take this feedback onboard and adjust how and what we communicate to the ITDM.
Finally closing of a packed day was Luanne Tierney and Lutz Klaus, whom announced a partner competition and a special award for partners in EMEA, where the winners will be announced at the Global Partner Conference in January 2014. I look forward to seeing who wins this award next year.
What a fabulous day! Great presenters and wonderful content shared. I can’t wait for day two! It has been an amazing event to connect with our partners face to face and develop more connections. Watch out for the second day blog update shortly.
View the original article here
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
NC State Ranked Sixth On Best-Value List by Princeton Review
NC State Ranked Sixth On Best-Value List by Princeton Review
North Carolina State University received more accolades for providing a quality education at an affordable price today as the university ranked sixth in the "Top 10 Best Value Public Colleges for 2013," released by The Princeton Review.
An education services company, The Princeton Review chose its "Best Value Colleges" for 2013 based on criteria covering academics, cost of attendance and financial aid. The methodology examined more than 30 factors using data from the company's surveys of administrators and students at 650 colleges with strong academic programs.
NC State is no stranger to Princeton Review best-value rankings. In 2006 it was named both second best value among the nation's public colleges and universities and one of the nation's 25 "most connected" campuses; in 2009 it was sixth on the best value list and was ninth in 2011.
US News has also ranked NC State's Online Graduate Engineering Program #7 on their list of Best Online Graduate Engineering Programs.
NC State also appeared on 2012-13 best-value lists recently compiled by Kiplinger's (21st in-state best value) and U.S. News & World Report (fifth in best overall public university value).