We have been thinking quite a bit about campaigns and positioning in 2011. Before unveiling our No More Blindfolded Marketing campaign this month, we wanted to get input from marketing professionals about what campaign would resonate the most. Today, we want to share our approach with you as well as what we learned.

We started with in-depth video customer interviews on how they use and benefit from email marketing. From those videos, a few interesting marketing expressions caught our attention for potential campaigns.

But to gain further insights and validation on those expressions rather than just keep our point of view internally focused, we decided to connect with marketers through two polls on LinkedIn. Have you ever wanted to do this? Here’s our approach and what we learned.

And the winner is…buzzwords?

First, we posted three expressions that represented what customers had mentioned in interviews to get a sense for what term would best capture how online marketing would develop in 2011. These expressions -- marketing optimization, predictive engagement and marketing automation -- were put to a vote on LinkedIn. For the record, the winner was predictive marketing, chosen the best by 45 percent of participants because it best captured how online marketing will develop. Overall, the poll garnered 94 votes and solicited 22 comments.

As marketers engaged with the poll, some common feedback in comments was the use of buzzwords. Some said they were powerful in a world of information overload though more thought they smacked of marketing speak and caused people to tune out. So, one important take away: when possible, keep it simple. As one commenter stated – consider spending a bit of time away from people in your own profession to make sure you step outside of the “echo chamber” every now and again. This will ensure your best messaging intentions are not somebody else’s buzzwords. Do you remember to step outside of the echo chamber?

The second poll explored specific messaging that delivered the freshest insight -- with 173 overall votes and 24 voters weighing in with comments. Our choices included: The Future is WOW, Get Optimized. Do Business, Marketing Solutions for Business, No More Blindfolded Marketing and Predict Your Marketing Engagement. ‘No More Blindfolded Marketing’ was voted the best message, albeit in a close race.

In the process of arriving at this message, respondents shared some thoughts that are often easier said than done: Keeping things short and sweet. Find out if people outside of your team at work consider an expression convoluted or straightforward. Also, when developing potential messages, a respondent pointed out that it was necessary to make sure it closely and clearly tied back to a particular product’s function, so the consumers of the message would understand the tie.

What worked? The real-time element of polling on LinkedIn worked really well. It was fast, and effective. We also definitely advocate this approach for those looking to truly embrace digital marketing practices. At the same time, we’d do some things differently.

Next time, we’d add a choice that is “none of the above (please comment)” in every poll moving forward. In the poll, we learned that, for some, no particular phrase was compelling – but they did not have an option to share an alternative. Also, we’ll be even more ready to dive into interesting comments and remarks inline to gain additional feedback from the rest of the group while the poll is running.

As you read this and perhaps peruse our polls, what opportunity have we missed? Where should we be doing something different in gathering feedback? How will you be using LinkedIn polls this year?

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About the Author

Tina Stewart (@SocialTIS) is Senior VP Of Marketing at Lyris, responsible for all aspects of Lyris' global corporate marketing organization. With more than 20 years of experience, Stewart served as senior director of Web and online strategy for Juniper Networks, vice president of worldwide marketing for Arbor Networks, and held senior marketing roles at several other technology companies.

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