[0:21] Intro
[0:50] Sarah’s background in digital marketing
[3:03] What sort of digital trends are happening on campus?
[5:06] What sort of trends do you see with companies?
[7:34] How to stay relevant in an ever changing landscape
[10:55] Is it possible to simulate digital marketing campaigns on campus?
[12:12] What will the digital classroom look like 5 years from now?
[14:14] How are the changes in techniques affecting the job market?
[16:10] The Wrap Up
BRIAN: Hello and welcome to Matchcast.
This is Brian Davidson and today we have a special guest. We are chatting with Sarah Smith Robbins. P.H.D. and the director of learning and technologies, part of the marketing faculty at my alma mater, Indiana University the Kelley School of Business.
And Sarah, starting off right away I certainly wish you were at school, especially teaching the courses you’re teaching when I was there.
SARAH: Yeah you graduated before I started.
BRIAN: Social media didn’t exist before I started. So starting things off, can you talk about your background in digital marketing?
SARAH: So I had a really strange background that brought me to this.
BRIAN: I think we all do.
SARAH: Yeah. So my PHD is in rhetoric. So what I studied was persuasive communication which aligns directly with marketing but there was no PHD in marketing at Ball St. where I graduated with my PHD so I aimed my rhetoric studies at online communities. Specifically, video games to start.
But then, social media was such a big booming thing, Facebook was growing, and twitter was growing, and there were so many communities popping up online so I wanted to know more about how those folks were connecting. And then I started to apply that to marketing practices.
And I really started at Kelley in the executive education program helping them integrate technology into executive ed. And there were so many client companies that were partnering with Kelley that didn’t know enough about social media for marketing purposes or for internal communication purposes.
And sort of stumbled into that application and started teaching in the marketing department.
BRIAN: What was the biggest hole you saw initially talking to these different companies.
SARAH: I think it was just a misunderstanding of what all these platforms can do. I think there were some stereotypes about for example Twitter, when I would first talk to people about twitter, they would say they don’t care what people are having for lunch so I don’t use that. Or I’m too old to learn how to use that.
So I had to aim them at the outcomes that they could achieve with these tools and make them realize that they were far more powerful than the stereotypes that they had heard.
BRIAN: That makes sense, I actually used to have a course where I tutored college coaches how to use social media in their recruiting. And a lot of them would look at me wide-eyed like “Why would I do this?”
SARAH: Because that’s where your athletes are, that’s where your consumers are.
BRIAN: I always pointed it towards, when I started college I said I didn’t want a cell phone, I can’t imagine walking more than two hours without a cell phone.
SARAH: Yeah, yeah and it’s not a phone anymore, it’s a communication device, it’s an information device in lots of different ways.
BRIAN: So what sort of trends are you seeing on campus in regards to digital and social.
SARAH: That’s really interesting, I would say for the last three years at least, especially in my undergrad classes, my students really don’t like Facebook anymore. It’s like a party that they really would prefer not to go to but it’s where their friends are. But if there was an alternative they would jump on it with both feet.
BRIAN: But they still see the utility of having a Facebook account? It’s kind of like an email at this point?
SARAH: Yeah, exactly. It’s funny, at the beginning of this semester I asked them how much they would have to be payed to quit Facebook and never go back. And it ranged from $50 to $10,000. And the students who had these really high values, they said it really was about the connections they had there and they were afraid if they quit Facebook they would lose track of people. But if they could port those connections over to a different system, they would gladly do it. They just feel like Facebook is overrun with marketers and they feel like it’s overly busy and kind of congested and they wish they could narrow it down. So they prefer Snapchat. They prefer WeChat. And they only use Facebook to connect with the people largely to IM with people.
BRIAN: Makes sense. And then how does that differ with MBA students?
SARAH: MBA students are a bit more polished and professional, and concerned about maintaining a really professional presence online. So they think that Facebook is a nice safe place they can be where they can keep a polished presence. Then they keep their genuine interactions with one another in some kind of instant messaging app.
And of course they all talk up LinkedIn, cause it’s a very important place to be. Though you know nobody hangs out on linked on a Friday night, it’s not a fun place to be.
So if they’re in sales, they believe in LinkedIn, but if they’re doing anything else, they’re like “Ah, I’ll post my resume there.”
BRIAN: Sounds about right. What’re some of the trends you’re seeing with the companies you work with?
SARAH: What I try to do, is prepare students to know more than the companies that they go to work for. Because I’m sure being in the industry you know this stuff moves so quickly that just about anything I can teach them goes out of date before I can show it to them.
BRIAN: Yeah it’s more about the methodology than about learning.
SARAH: So we have to move really quickly, so I use the companies that we work with as sort of a barometer for, ok so this is where the industry is, this is what the industry understands. So how can I get my students a few steps ahead of that before they go out into the job market. So they can go into these jobs and actually teach people some things and actually move those companies ahead.
I’ve worked with big CPG companies, I’ve work with B2B and industrial type companies. And by and large the trend I’m seeing is that just recently in the last 18 months or so I’m really excited, more and more companies are realizing that they need partners outside the company, not replacements.
So two or three years ago, every company I worked with had an agency they trusted to do all of their social, and I always tell them it’s like paying someone to go on the date for you. It just doesn’t work, it’s not authentic.
BRIAN: Especially not for their organic posting.
SARAH: Yeah, exactly, and these people don’t know your business the way you know your business.
BRIAN: And they don’t know the culture.
SARAH: Yeah, but if you partner with them, you create the content and they can help you execute the strategy. And then it can work. And I’m finally seeing companies bring some of that stuff inside. I’m finally seeing them understand there’s a connection between sales and marketing when you go online. Especially for B2B companies that their sales people really need to understand social media and how to create relationships and not just sell at people.
Which it was kind of the style for a few years. And I’m really starting to see companies that they can build relationships with consumers using these channels. And then I’m trying to get my students up to speed on how to do that tactically so they can master it.
And that’s another thing I’m finally seeing companies that feel like they can actually measure their return on their investments in social. A few years ago it was just kind of cross your fingers and hope.
BRIAN: Black box.
SARAH: Yeah, and I believe, if you can’t measure it, don’t do it.
BRIAN: Makes sense. You spoke to this a little bit earlier; can you talk about how you try to keep your curriculum relevant in this ever changing digital world?
SARAH: So I torture my students with a lot of research articles. So rather than reading the industry reports, or case studies which is kind of the meat and potatoes of business school. Those case studies are a story of what someone has already done. And if there’s anything true of social and digital marketing it’s that novelty is an important part of it.
And what somebody has done successfully it’s not something that you can just copy and paste and try again.
So we really focus on the models that are coming out of all the great research that’s going on and the insights that those things provide and then turn those into strategy and tactics that can be implemented.
BRIAN: Interesting.
SARAH: So for example, I’ve just banned the sales funnel from any conversation in any of my courses. All my students have been trained on the sales funnel and it’s just the most outdated model ever. And so we start out with Edelman’s consumer decision journey instead. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. But instead of the funnel it’s a loop, right?
And then we use those stages in relationship building to figure out how to develop strategies and where to put budgets, rather than a funnel. And using models like that that are coming out of research and coming out of firms like yours rather than from the brands themselves, we get a little bit ahead of the curve.
BRIAN: We always talk about that journey to purchase, usually it starts off with tools like Facebook video, building an audience then targeting, then banners, email, and multi-platform campaigns, and obviously they all work together.
SARAH: Yeah, all those pieces go together to affect a consumer’s opinion, their level of awareness and their decision to purchase, but I think what a lot of brands have done is they put about 80% of their budget into that pre purchase relationship building, and I coach them to put about 60% into their post purchase relationship building instead.
BRIAN: And build that long term.
SARAH: Yeah, a happy customer is better marketing than you could ever buy. And not only do you build loyalty for the purchase, but you also get the brand advocates who are way more persuasive than any marketing message that you put out can be.
And I usually equate it to being a bad date. In which my students can relate to. You know somebody you really want to go out with, you make sure you look nice and smell nice whenever you are going to see them. And then you ask them out, you go out on the first date and you put on your best face for that first date. But when they agree to go on the second date you just show up in pajamas with bedhead. We would never do that right? But that’s what we do with consumers when all we want is the purchase.
BRIAN: You wont be going on a third date.
SARAH: Yeah, so we’ve got to look good for the second date, the third date, and the fifth date. But then the analogy kind of breaks down cause after that we really want them to tell their friends to go on dates with us, and that doesn’t really work. But up to that point the analogy really works and my students seem to really understand.
And companies seem to understand now, but they don’t quite know how to do that because they’ve always been geared towards just closing the deal.
BRIAN: Awesome, so are you simulating these types of campaigns on campus or in the classroom?
SARAH: Yeah, it’s really tough to do a genuine simulation. So there are a couple companies that have digital marketing simulations out now, I’ve tried them all, I’m not happy with any of them. So what I have just decided to do is to put my students out there and get their hands dirty. So we do things like in my courses in the spring, I have my students write buzz feed articles that they think will spread. Then they engineer the spread of that, and track it and try to draw attention to it and direct traffic to it. And track their own campaign just to a buzz feed article.
So we do stuff like that, we do a little bit of AdWords experimentation because that’s fairly easy to do and most of them have access to some kind of website or we’ll build a quick and dirty website on a google site and put the code on it so we can do that.
But it’s just not as easy to get sponsoring client companies in to give the students real life projects because it’s just really difficult to manage.
BRIAN: And the platforms are changing so quickly it’s hard to simulate anything, By the time you create a simulation the platform has changed.
SARAH: Yeah, and then as much as a small company might really appreciate the help for a semester from the students, I’d hate to leave them hanging once the students are gone.
BRIAN: Makes sense. Just the overall digital classroom and changes you’re seeing, what do you think it’s going to look like 5 years from now?
SARAH: Wow, that’s tough question. I mean, most of the faculty I know at least the ones who are willing to talk to me knowing what I do and how I think, don’t have rules about technology in the classroom anymore. You don’t get these faculty who are like, “don’t bring that laptop to class, I don’t want that screen in your face.”
Most folks are smart enough now to know that it’s a resource for students to use, and if you’re engaging enough they’re not going to choose to search on Facebook instead of paying attention. You know we have to compete with the technology and the technology in meaningful ways.
So we’re seeing some really exciting trends in the faculty technology linking up with the student’s technology in the classroom so we can collaborate better. So we’ve got tools here now where I can create a local area network basically in a classroom and when students are working on a project I can select their screen from mine and pop it up on the big screen in class. We can talk about it and critique it then we can take it back. The new can snag another students screen without anybody moving from their seats. So that kind of technology is really awesome.
BRIAN: I sure wish that had existed in 2002.
SARAH: Yeah, we are also seeing some really exciting developments in online education. I can put a little plug in here for Kelley that we have the oldest online MBA program out there. Everybody’s acting like it’s a new thing but we’ve had one for a long time.
We’re seeing there’s a shift in online education from teaching at people to teaching with people, so the technologies that we are implementing now are much more about conversations with students and collaboration with students rather than lectures.
Lecture is the only teaching method that has been proven to be ineffective. Everything else you have a chance of doing something great. So we try to push people to innovate and let students have more control in the class.
BRIAN: How are you seeing the changes in these marketing techniques, affecting the actual job market.
SARAH: Well, there’s the myth and then there’s the reality right? So my students are really paranoid that everybody they apply with is going to spend hours googling them and find every little dirty secret from their high school to their baby pictures right?
But the reality of what I’m seeing when I talk to recruiters is especially in marketing, recruiters are smart now and they’re looking at students as a product and are saying if you want to market my brand, you’ve got to be able to market your own brand so I want to see how you’re promoting yourself and your skills online and your personality. Do you present yourself as a balanced person online? And I now have students who actually promote their self-marketing abilities as something they can bring to the table for an employer, and the savvy employers are picking up on that.
BRIAN: Speaking of employers, is there a good example of a company you want to point out that is doing a really good job of using the techniques you’re teaching?
SARAH: Hmmmmm, I’m trying to think of one…
BRIAN: Maybe, the Kelley School of Business!
SARAH: Yeah, the Kelley School of Business is doing it. The students I have that end up places like a lot of the consulting firms, places like dewite, find that those consulting companies are much more open to innovation and accepting a model that they haven’t heard of. And seeing it as something they might be informed by.
And so a little bit disappointed by the CPG’s where my students go, because they seem to be sort of ingrained in the models they’ve been using in the past. Or they’ve invested in some dashboard tool so heavily they’re letting it guide their strategy rather than the other way around.
But smaller brands are doing really well, small companies are integrating this stuff in really smart ways, and so that’s where I see the exciting stuff happening.
BRIAN: Awesome, anything you particularly want to plug, or anything you’ve got coming up?
SARAH: Nothing specific…
BRIAN: Ok, well why don’t you tell listeners where they can find you on social.
SARAH: So because I was Sarah smith before I got married, try to get that as a username anywhere.
BRIAN: I tried to buy BrianDavidson@gmail from the guy who got it before me, but he said it was not for sale.
SARAH: I made quite a dollar off of selling sarahrobbins.com a while back.
So I’m intelligirl everywhere. That’s been my username for forever and I’ve tried to keep that kind of unified. And I try to use that as an example for my students. To say, hey, have a personal brand. I’ve got the pink swash in my hair and the intelligirl logo and it’s all over the internet so I’m pretty easy to find.
BRIAN: Well, Sarah I really appreciate you taking the time, thanks for coming on the podcast, and I’m sure the listeners will find this fascinating.
SARAH: I hope so!
BRIAN: Have a good one and we’ll hopefully talk again soon.
SARAH: Alright, bye!
Resources:
–intro and outro music from our friends at Sabers: https://sabersmusic.bandcamp.com/releases
–Sarah’s Faculty Bio: https://kelley.iu.edu/facultyglobal/directory/FacultyProfile.cfm?ID=35119