In October of 2017, MRG held a global client gathering in Vienna, Austria, where we shared a lot of news and previewed some of the most exciting product releases in years. In February, we’ll visit Sydney, Australia to offer a condensed version of our conference (and if you’re in the Sydney area, there’s still time to join us!). But with MRG clients in over 150 countries around the world, we can’t visit everyone in person – at least not in one year! So we offered the very abridged version in our first MRG Annual Update, a live webcast held on January 16.
Hosted by Staci Nisbett and with content from Tricia Naddaff, Lucy Sullivan, and Heather Troidl, the very full, very fast one-hour session included:
- Research highlights from the year, featuring new findings on generation vs. age, generation differences in the IDI, observer rating variances by gender, and more (we told you it was full and fast!)
- A preview of the future of marketing at MRG, including tools to better empower our network to win new business (including an exciting new technology coming later this year!)
- A preview of the long-awaited IDI Team Report, coming later this spring
- A glance at Momentum, the groundbreaking new tool that helps your clients create an effective, actionable plan for growth, coming later in 2018
Did you miss the live webcast?
To get a more robust demo of Momentum and the transformative impact it could have on your practice and on your clients’ development, be sure to join us for the Product Preview on March 1.
In the meantime, you can catch up on anything you missed in the webinar by watching the video or getting the slides here.
As always, the folks who joined asked some terrific questions that challenged us and got us thinking. And as often happens, we had very little time to answer them during the broadcast! Read on for questions and answers from the webinar…
Q & A from The 2018 MRG Annual Update
Q: How can you help us assess competencies for a client?
A: MRG has mapped many client competency models to the LEA (sometimes in combination with the IDI). Additionally, we have partnered with consultants and their clients to reconfigure the design of the LEA report to combine the client’s internal language and branding with the core elements of the LEA report. If the mapping process is not desirable for your client and they want to get specific measures for their competencies, we can work with you to develop custom anchored rating questions that can be added to the core LEA assessment to capture ratings on the specific competencies.
Q: What languages will be available for Momentum?
A: Momentum will be launched in US and UK English. Other languages will be supported based upon demand/volume.
Q: When is Momentum available?
A: General release is scheduled for May-June 2018. Exact dates are dependent upon BETA testing results. Release date and full details will be published in May 2018.
Q: Are you planning a US conference in 2018 similar to Vienna? What US location and timeframe are you anticipating?
A: We are not currently planning a US conference in 2018, but are in the early stages of considering one for 2019. Any suggestions you might have on a desirable location would be happily considered.
Q: Can you order the individual IDI (self) with the narrative content you showed or is it only available with the IDI team report?
A: The narrative content showed is specific to the IDI Team report only. It is meant to expand upon and provide further insights from the individual report.
Q: When will Momentum and the IDI team report be available in other languages?
A: Momentum and IDI Team Report will be launched in US and UK English. Other languages will be supported based upon demand and volume. To make sure that we’re meeting the demand, we want to know where it is – so please don’t wait until a language becomes available to let us know you need it! Tell us what languages you’d like to see these products in by emailing [email protected].
Q: Are you targeting certain markets to build awareness? Where will you focus?
A: In 2018, we have recognized that we need to focus our efforts more clearly and approach marketing with an emphasis on follow-through. We have chosen a strategy that focuses on targeting prospective clients by the problems they want to solve, rather than by markets. Internally, we’re calling it “solution-based marketing.” Each quarter, we are focusing our marketing efforts on a specific theme, and you’ll see content marketing, email marketing, social media campaigns, research, and business development all working together to build greater awareness of MRG tools by targeting people by the questions they ask and the answers they need.
We look forward to developing a better understanding of our audience – the segments in which we are resonating and the segments where we have more work to do. We believe that taking a solution-based marketing approach will yield intelligence about market segments, along with intelligence about what challenges our prospective audience is facing.
Q: Any ideas for sharing short bits of content or videos to clients and prospects via Linked in and other social media outlets?
A: There can definitely be a feeling of “where do start?” when it comes to creating and sharing video content. At MRG, we’ve recently started using a platform called Wistia, which gives us some more metrics on our videos, offers some light editing tools, lets us add a link or a call to action at the end of a video, and makes it easy to embed and share videos, whether you want to make them public, or you want to connect 1:1. They have some interesting ideas on their blog: https://wistia.com/blog/categories/making-video
A few things I’d suggest exploring as a beginner are:
- Video voicemails: just use your webcam or your cell phone to record a brief message, just like you would a voicemail. The novelty of video and the personal connection can be a differentiator in getting people to pay attention to your message.
- A short reaction video: is there something in the news or a recent piece of media that relates to your work, or that you have a unique take on, given your experience? You can share your reflections on it in a similar style – informal, via webcam or phone. Keep it under ~90 seconds to hold people’s attention; stay professional, but let your personality shine through, too – don’t read from a script. It can make a timely and topical social media post.
If you’re thinking about investing more resources in video content, think about:
- An explainer video: consider hiring a video professional to work with you on an “explainer” video – a short, often animated video that explains your unique service to the world. In the area of consulting and coaching, the thing you’re explaining may be your firm’s unique philosophy or approach. Here’s an example of an explainer-style video MRG recently created: http://bit.ly/MRGleadership
- How-to videos: if you’re really looking to be searchable and start creating a following around your video content, think about creating videos that are framed as “how to” tutorials. This content is highly searchable and can earn a new audience quickly. Think about what kinds of questions your ideal prospective customers would be asking – how would you answer it?
We’ll be creating more short-form video content in the coming months that will be easy for you to share on your networks, so follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to get some easy-to-share snippets, too!
