Tag Archives: Rachel Pasqua

How CMOs Can Succeed with Mobile Marketing

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9781118388440 cover.indd

Good news for mobile marketers: U.S. mobile ad spending far exceeded expectations and grew by 180 percent in the United States alone in 2012. The growth of mobile advertising is a timely development in light of today’s news about the publication of Mobile Marketing: An Hour a Day, co-authored by Rachel Pasqua (who works with me at iCrossing) and eMarketer’s Noah Elkin. Mobile Marketing: An Hour a Day gives CMOs and their teams a detailed guide for how to build brands with mobile marketing. The ethos of the book is this: mobile marketing is about the audience, not the device. The key to successful mobile marketing is creating connected moments throughout the entire purchase journey.

The book covers every aspect of employing mobile marketing, such as location-based marketing via destinations like Foursquare and Yelp or managing a mobile commerce site.

According to Rachel, the book represents a distinct shift in the way marketers are talking about mobile. “Brand aren’t just fixated on mobile apps anymore,” she told me as I prepared this blog post. “Marketers have shifted the conversation about mobile to strategy. They want to figure out how to connect mobile to broader campaigns and social conversations that create sustainable value for their brands. And our answer comes down to this: audience.”

Hence, Mobile Marketer: An Hour a Day focuses on the importance of audience and strategy first, and devices second. For example, the first two chapters discuss mapping the mobile opportunity and creating a mobile strategy. Subsequent chapters show how various aspects of mobile marketing, such as the development of mobile websites and apps, tie back to strategy.

You can get a better sense of Rachel’s “audience first” thinking in a blog post she just published that introduces the book. Moreover, Rachel discusses the growth of mobile marketing more broadly in two recently published posts, Why 2012 Really Was the Year of Mobile and 8 Mobile Marketing Trends for 2013.

How are you embracing mobile marketing in 2013?

Build your brand with your Twitter profile

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Most executives on Twitter rely on boring personal profiles that say little about them beyond their titles. And yet your Twitter profile is an opportunity to build your personal brand and humanize your company (even if your account is personal).  Here are three executives who get it right:

1. Clark Kokich

The first few words of Clark’s profile are predictable and necessary – he’s the chairman of Razorfish (where I was once CMO) and director for three different companies. But then Clark drops something different on you: in addition to being a proud dad, he’s a mediocre husband, bad guitarist, and aging Baby Boomer.

Clark (who I know personally) scores points for showing a sense of humor about himself. How many senior executives to do you know who use the words “mediocre husband” and “aging Baby Boomer” in their personal profiles? His profile says, “I’m comfortable enough in my position to exercise some humility and have a little fun.”

2. Rachel Pasqua

Rachel’s profile is short but intriguing.

Like Clark, she starts with the professional – vice president of mobile for my current employer iCrossing. Then she adds something direct (twin mommy) and interesting (“Repairer of the Irreparable.”).

And notice Rachel’s graphic. Technically she departs from a social media best practice by not using a personal picture as Clark does. But her use of the Emily the Strange graphic, along with the cryptic “Repairer of the Irreparable,” piques your curiosity.

I want to ask Rachel what Emily the Strange means to her – is the character a personal inspiration? Maybe she likes the clothing line? Or both? She gives you a clue that she’s a “get it done” type – professionally and personally (you probably have to be if you are VP of mobile and a mother of twins).

Because I work with Rachel (she’s an excellent mobile marketing thought leader), I’m sure I will ask her.

3. Brian Dunn

You have to cut the CEO of Best Buy some slack.

CEOs – especially those who run giant publicly traded companies – have their words and actions watched so closely by investors, employees, lawyers, and business partners that it’s tempting for them to avoid social media completely. (A topic Forrester Research CEO George Colony addressed at a 2010 Forrester Forum.)

Brian might not say a whole lot in his Twitter profile, and I wish his Twitter handle used his name (maybe it was taken already). But he does something Clark and Rachel don’t do: he leads with the personal (“Father. Husband”) before the professional “CEO of Best Buy”).

Like Rachel, he employs a somewhat cryptic statement that makes you want to learn more about him (“Fanatic about the Connected World”). And he links to his Best Buy blog where you can see just how much of a fanatic about the connected world he really is.

Good for Brian. And extra points for using what is obviously not a slick, airbrushed corporate photo. He’s not smiling . . . but he’s authentic.

Authenticity, a sense of humor and humility, and intrigue . . . those are a few of the reasons I’ve singled out Clark, Rachel, and Brian.

Who are some of your favorites?