Digital marketing and the state of the mobile web: Think bigger.

From MediaPost.com, this story about the growing importance of the mobile web for advertisers (and business development programs):

Mobile experts have long advised brands and publishers to set up mobile-optimized sites that they can drive consumers to via mobile advertising. It looks like they may be catching on, with nearly half (49%) of mobile campaigns sending people to their mobile sites in April, representing a 28% increase from a year ago, according to the latest data from mobile ad network Millennial Media.

Obviously, the evolution of the mobile web as a gateway between consumers and brands is still in its infancy (and evolving slowly at that), but the potential is clear. Once advertisers finally push past the “establishing a general market presence” and “lead generation” phase, they will begin to focus on specific types of functions and services that will focus not only on customer acquisition, but also customer development and retention. (More on that below.)

One finding from Millennial Data that tends to indicate we still have a very long way to go before advertisers adopt the new realities (and capabilities) of digital is this:

Ads that involved some social component still only made up 17% of the total. By comparison, 40% of ads included a click-to-call feature.

and…

Targeting by demographic and behavioral audience made up 34% and 10% respectively.

With the effectiveness gap growing daily between the familiar sets of generalizations making up demographic modeling versus the increasing specificity of behavioral modeling through social monitoring, it is surprising to see that demographic modeling still outweighs behavioral model by a ratio of 3 to 1.

And finally this, which may be the most telling comment of all:

Social media continues to play a growing role in mobile advertising. Campaigns that let consumers take some sort of social action, from liking a Facebook page to leaving feedback on a new product, grew 39% from the prior month.

That’s great, but it means advertisers are still pushing “likes” and “follows” and “shares” as campaign outcomes. This isn’t inherently bad, mind you. These types of basic social interactions between consumers and advertisers are valuable. No question about it. But they are still 101-level outcomes reminiscent of early digital metrics like “hits” and “uniques,” which constitute only the thin (and sadly the most obvious) outer layer of metrics illustrating consumer behaviors in response to marketing, advertising and other business development activities.

Notably absent from the trends reported by Millennial’s data is an evidence of adoption of the more pioneering strategies and tactics employed by advertisers looking to distance themselves from their competitors – like Ford, Starbucks, Virgin America and even Intercontinental Hotel Group – whose use of the medium now extends beyond the obvious “presence and acquisition” play. Let me illustrate this point with a few diagrams.

First, if you are a business, let’s look at what your digital strategy should look like:

Forget for a second everything you have been told about the importance of content, reach and impressions, and typical marketing or media points of focus. Put it all aside for now, so you can focus on this. You can go back to that stuff in a few minutes.

Take a look at the above daisy chain of customer development phases. Generally speaking, a business first begins with presence (to create awareness, desire and preference), then moves into acquisition (turning a prospective customer into a transacting customer). What comes next is the development phase, where a freshly acquired customer becomes a better educated customer. This phase is often characterized by a shift from entry-level products to more advanced-level products, or from basic products to premium products. – Think of the evolution of a typical consumer in regards to a hobby like photography, triathlon or digital publishing, for example. Most people don’t start out with the pro-level stuff. They start with entry-level or mid-market products, then work their way up. This is what businesses typically focus on during the development phase. – Following this (and often overlapping it) is the retention phase, where a business and a consumer manage to keep their relationship relevant and interesting well beyond the honeymoon phase. In this phase, the consumer may have reached the end of the development journey. He or she has become a premium customer. There are no more new or exciting products to buy for a while. They’re all set. Now the trick is to make sure they don’t get bored with you, and aren’t lured away by a competitor. Finally, the last phase is the maintenance of long term loyalty (a topic we will cover again very soon).

Note that creating mechanisms of evangelism and positive WOM (word-of-mouth) can be a secondary focus for the brand in phases 2, 3, 4 and 5, which in turn help drive all five phases of development. (Again, the subject of a future post.) Worth keeping in mind as every phase, when managed properly, also enhances the others, creating new customers and developing them into loyal, frequent, eager partners for the brand.

Every business on the planet is subject to some version of this customer development process, which is why it is so relevant to our discussion today. Now let us look at what is happening today in the digital (marketing) world:

What the above diagram shows is the current digital and social media model for most brands and advertisers, the focus being on presence and acquisition, but not yet on development, retention, or long term loyalty. (Notice that I say most, not all.) This is a serious problem, and the reason why is simple: By focusing almost exclusively on presence and acquisition, current digital strategies interrupt a natural business and customer development process that must follow its course.

Think of the emphasis on presence and acquisition vs the more complete model that also encompasses development, retention and loyalty as the difference between focusing all of your energy on scoring as many one-nigh-stands with complete strangers as possible, and building healthy relationships with other human beings. The parallels aren’t exact (in business, healthy relationships still have to scale), but the metaphor helps illustrate the inherent flaw of the incomplete model: Shallow objectives produce shallow results. Not to mention that acquisition devoid of development, retention and loyalty essentially signals a slightly less than social behavior. One might even make the argument that it signals a rather anti-social type of behavior.

This isn’t to say that an incomplete digital strategy will utterly ruin a company’s efforts in the development, retention and loyalty-building phases of the process, but it will – at best – fail to support these efforts, and – at worst – either hinder or interrupt them in regards to increasingly important digital channels.

Would it not be simpler, then, to make sure that your digital strategy supports every phase of this process? Of course. Why is it, then, that so few digital strategies – with social media components or not – fail to focus on post-acquisition phases? Think about that.

Simple stuff, but you have to be aware of these types of mechanisms in order to see where marketing strategies tend to fall short. If you are an agency especially, don’t just focus on specialized tasks and familiar service models. See the bigger picture. “See the field,” as a military commander would say. For a digital strategy to be effective, for it to bear fruit, it has to be complete, it has to cover all the angles, it has to generate more opportunities for both the client and the agency than existed yesterday.

Stop and ask yourselves the question: Are your digital activities mostly geared towards establishing a presence on digital channels and attracting customers, or do they also help develop and retain them? What about long term engagement and actual relationship-building with loyal customers (not just a default ‘community management’ stopgap)? Are you really there yet? Still think all this is mostly about content, impressions, media value, follows and mentions?

Think bigger. You’re on the right track, but you’re still stuck in first gear.

Cheers,

Olivier

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Since it’s June, here are this month’s three quick little announcements:

One – If you haven’t read “Social Media ROI: Managing and measuring social media efforts in your organization” yet, you will find 300 pages of insights with which to complement this article. It won’t answer all of your questions, but it will answer many of them. If anything, the book is a pretty solid reference guide for anyone responsible for a social media program or campaign. It also makes a great gift to your boss if you want him or her to finally understand how this social media stuff works for companies.

You can sample a free chapter and find out where to buy the book by checking out www.smroi.net.

Two – If you, your agency or your client plan on attending the Cannes Lionsfrom June 19-25, I am planning something a little… “unofficial” during the festival. If you are interested in being part of it, let me know.

You can send me an email, a note via LinkedIn, a Twitter DM, or a facebook message if you want to find out more. (The right hand side of the screen should provide you with my contact information.)

Three – If the book isn’t enough and you can’t make it to Cannes later this month, you can sign up for a half day of workshops in Antwerp (Belgium) on 30 June. (Right after the Lions.) The 5 one-hour sessions will begin with an executive briefing on social media strategy and integration, followed by a best practices session on building a social media-ready marketing program, followed by a PR-friendly session on digital brand management, digital reputation management and real-time crisis management, followed by a session on social media and business measurement (half R.O.I., half not R.O.I.). We will cap off the afternoon with a full hour of open Q&A. As much as like rushing through questions in 5-10 minutes at the end of a presentation, wouldn’t it be nice to devote an entire hour to an audience’s questions? Of course it would. We’re going to give it a try. Find out more program details here. Think of it as a miniRed Chair.

The cool thing about this structure is that you are free to attend the sessions that are of interest to you, and go check your emails or make a few phone if one or two of the sessions aren’t as important. The price is the same whether you attend one or all five, and we will have a 15 minute break between each one.

The afternoon of workshops is part of Social Media Day Antwerp (the Belgian arm of Mashable’s global Social Media Day event), and I can’t help but notice that the price of tickets is ridiculously low for what is being offered. The early bird pricing is… well, nuts. Anyone can afford to come, which is a rare thing these days. (Big props to the organizers for making the event so accessible.)

The event is divided into 2 parts: The workshop in the afternoon, and the big Belgian style party in the evening. You can register for one or both (do both).

Register here: Social Media Day – Antwerp

My advice: Sign up while there are still seats available, and before #smdaybe organizers realize they forgot to add a zero at the end of the ticket prices. 

Cheers,

Olivier.

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A Better Business Doctrine – Part 1: Assholes are bad for business.

Every doctrine has to start somewhere. Even this one.

Want to boost your repeat business, get tons of free referrals, acquire bunches of new customers and get lots of positive buzz for free? There’s a pretty simple way to do it that doesn’t have to cost you a whole lot. Can you guess what it is?

Simple: Purge your company of assholes.

In fact, let me share item #1 in my Better Business Doctrine with you real quick. Are you ready? Here we go:

The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.

That’s it.

A simple example, from the friendly skies.

Does this seem like common sense? Of course it does. And yet here we are, routinely forced to endure a passive-aggressive or plain argumentative jerks who would rather exercise their “authority” than provide customers – even stressed out customers – with pleasant experiences. Why is that? Let me answer that question: Because companies are still hiring assholes.

Let me give you a few examples just from the past week:

1a. The Continental flight I was on last week

Flight Attendant (sternly) to a passenger in the process of turning off their iPad, just not quickly enough: “SIR! I need you to turn that off right now!” (Stares angrily at passenger until the device is turned off, and walks away, visibly annoyed.)

This probably happens to flight crews 20+ times per day. Every time a plane pushes off from the gate and prepares its approach, passengers in the middle of a song, of a paragraph, of a game of Angry Birds or Brick Breaker take an extra 10-30 seconds to “comply” with the “please turn off your electronic devices at this time” announcement on the PA. I get it. It probably gets annoying after a while. But guess what: You’re a flight attendant. Asking people to turn off their electronic toys comes with the job. You don’t have to be an asshole about it. Case in point:

1b: The Delta flight I was on the following day

– Flight Attendant (with a smile, jokingly) to a passenger so absorbed by what he was reading that he missed the “turn off your electronic devices” announcement and kept his Kindle going: “Good book?”

– Passenger, sensing that he was the object of the flight attendant’s attention, looks up from his device: “I’m sorry?”

– Flight Attendant, nonchalantly points at the Kindle: “Good reading?”

– Passenger, smiling back: “Yeah. Very!” (Gets it. Laughs. Starts to look for the “off” button.)

– Flight attendant: “You can turn it back on as soon as we’re on the ground.” (Walks away. Stops. Turns around.) “The book. What is it?”

Passenger answers. Flight attendant repeats the title as if to remember it, nods as if interested, and returns to his station.

The difference between the two isn’t training or pay. It isn’t corporate policy or procedure. It isn’t even company culture. The difference between the two occurrences is this:

One of these flight attendants, at some point during the course of her day, week, month, year or career, decided to let her asshole flag fly. The other one didn’t.

The basic impact of an asshole on your customers

How every asshole on your payroll affects your brand equity and impacts your business on a daily basis.

The impact of just one asshole’s behavior in a customer-facing role doesn’t stop with the one customer they treat poorly. Ten rows of passengers witnessed the exchanges on both flights, and I can guarantee that the ten rows on the Continental flight (30 passengers) were not impressed, while those on the Delta flight surely were. The ramifications of this are simple:

Whatever shot Continental had at influencing these 30 people to develop a preference for flying its friendly skies, for being more loyal, for looking to book future flights with them first, just flew out the window, not because of price, not because of delays, not because the plane was dirty. The price was great. The plane left on time and was impeccable. Continental did everything right except one thing: Someone there allowed an asshole (and probably more than one) to take on a key customer service role. Delta, on the other hand, scored some points.

And just to be fair, I’ve run into my fair of assholes working for Delta too. Few domestic US airlines seem immune to this phenomenon these days, except for perhaps Alaska Air, whose service and hiring practices, to my knowledge are still impeccable.

That said, my experience with Delta flight crews this week was stellar, and not just because of this little anecdote. (Expect another post about what else happened very soon.) The difference between the two airlines for me was limited to my experience, as it is for all of us. Before the recommendations and the word-of-mouth and the marketing, our own experience shapes our bias.

Every positive experience creates positive associations with a brand, while every negative experience creates a negative association with a brand. More positive than negative = positive bias, preference, even loyalty. Consistent negative experiences (especially those that repeat themselves, like frequent delays, rude employees, apathetic managers, or being talked down to by an unprofessional asshole) = negative bias, preference for your competitors instead of you, and cynicism towards your brand.

The wheels of this mental equation – more emotional than empirical – start turning every time the thought of your brand comes up, and you need to understand it isn’t linear. The way we process the negative and the positive isn’t as balanced as you might think. For whatever reason, until you have grown into a loyal fan of the brand, the equation tends to be heavily weighed towards the negative: What you did right six months ago – or for the last thirty years,- doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you did wrong yesterday or just last week. That’s part 1 of how the mental math of brand experiences work. Part 2 is this: People will easily forgive incidents and accidents: Lost luggage, no available upgrades, long lines at the counter, mechanical problems, etc. Those things are out of your control, and once the anger and frustration subside, they’ll get it. Those negative impressions will evaporate. But one thing customers won’t forgive of any company: Being deliberately treated badly by an asshole.

Just as being an asshole  is a choice, – especially when dealing with a customer – hiring an asshole and keeping them on staff is also a choice. Because of this immutable fact, every company bears its part of responsibility in the hiring and promoting of assholes. Customers instinctively understand this, which is why when they run into one of your company’s assholes, they don’t blame the asshole for treating them poorly, they blame you. They blame the brand. The negative association they take home with them isn’t with that person (whose name and face they will forget inside of a week), but with you. Your assholes are faceless. All customers remember is the context: You. Your company. Your brand. The asshole just goes on being an asshole day after day, happy to have a job that pays him – even rewards him – for being a complete raging asshole all day long.

At the end of their shift, what you have to understand is that assholes in your employ don’t lose customers. You do. You spend your resources bringing them to the cash register, and every asshole on your staff spends all day making sure they never come back.

For this reason if none other, choose and evaluate your employees carefully.

The impact of just one asshole - amplified by social media

The real cost of letting assholes poison your brand from the inside.

If you are in business and have employees, let me be VERY clear about this: You are always only one asshole away from losing your best customer. The more assholes you have on staff, the faster and more often this will happen.

Not only that, but assholes tend to turn off, not only the one customer they happen to be unpleasant to, but everyone within earshot as well.

And today, ladies and gentlemen, “within earshot” isn’t just the ten rows on the plane or the ten people in the store waiting to check out. It is also potentially the hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Twitter users who might get a glimpse of that negative experience and be turned off in turn. Even millions, for that matter. (See previous 2 images, inspired by David Armano’s “Influence Ripples” theory (Edelman), below:)

David Armano's "Influence Ripples" (Edelman)

Let me give this a financial angle for you: Over the course of a year, one asshole on your staff, just one, can invalidate every dime your company has spent on advertising, marketing and PR. That’s the real liability of assholes. For small businesses, an asshole might only cost you $10,000 in wasted marketing, messaging or brand positioning. If you’re a bigger company, the same asshole (or a whole army of them, which is more likely) could cost you hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted marketing and brand management dollars.

That was part 1 of that equation. Part 2 is measured in lost revenue from disappointed customers taking their business elsewhere (your competitors thank you), lost revenue from all of the net new customers delighted customers would have recommended you to (but didn’t, because your assholes chased them away), and so on.

As a result, the higher the proportion of assholes to caring professionals a company has on staff, the more likely it is to have to spend more and more on marketing (with increasingly diminishing returns), while customer retention falls flat and even starts to dip into the red. Assholes aren’t just bad for customer service or your brand’s image. Assholes are bad for business. They are a counter-current to your hopes and dreams. They are the cancer that first weighs you down, then eventually makes your brand begin to fail, then wither, then die.

So let me repeat today’s lesson: The customer-facing organization with the least amount of assholes wins.

Don’t believe me? Ask Zappos. If you have never heard of Zappos, they sell shoes on the internet. That’s it. Well… LOTS of shoes. So many in fact that Amazon bought them for a pretty penny. Not only that, but Amazon decided not to make any major changes to Zappos’ leadership or culture. They left Zappos alone because the model works well just as it is. What’s Zappos’ secret? The customer experiences they create are stellar. Why are they stellar? Because Zappos pretty much has a “no asshole on staff” policy. Their hiring practices focus on this, and for good reason: They know that a happy customer is a loyal customer.

The simple truth (and we all know this) is that happy customers are good for business. In fact, no. They are GREAT for business: The happier a customer is, the more likely it is that they will come back, spend more, spend more often, and recommend you to all their friends. This is what you want. This is what makes businesses insanely successful. This. You don’t have to invent the iPad to be a huge success. Zappos just sells shoes on the internet. Virgin Airlines just flies people from airport to airport. Intercontinental Hotels (disclosure: client) are basically just… hotels. We’re not talking space walks or time travel, here. Your favorite restaurant, your favorite coffee shop, your favorite mechanic, none of them necessarily reinvented the wheel, right? They didn’t win a Nobel prize for revolutionizing their industries. No. What they did was this: They figured out that a happy customer is good for business, so they focused on that. They earned your trust, your respect and your loyalty. Want to know how they did that? By giving you theirs.

Let me let you in on a little secret: An asshole doesn’t think that way. An asshole doesn’t think about happy customers. He doesn’t care about happy customers. An asshole only thinks about himself: His own mood, his own frustrations, his own personal dramas, his own power trips. An asshole doesn’t give anyone their trust, respect or loyalty. Assholes just don’t think that way. And that is precisely the rub: No matter how well you pay them, you can’t make assholes give a shit. And that is bad for business. Very bad.

A fork in the road for every organization:

Do you know one way to make sure your customers are always happy? Only hire people who want your customers to be happy too. People who want to be helpful, who want to fix problems, who take pride in making someone’s day better instead of worse. People who genuinely want to see the company do well. People with pride and self respect and ambition beyond their own bank account or advancement. Do you think this is too hard? It isn’t. Just hire better.

Want to guess how to guarantee that your customers will not be happy? Hire assholes to take care of them. (It works every time.)

That’s your choice: Door A or Door B.

Door A: Hire super nice, helpful people and your business will soar.

Door B: Hire assholes, and your business will forever struggle to stay afloat.

Every time you run into one of your employees (or candidates) and he or she acts like an asshole, I want you to think about that. I want you to think about how much harder you want to have to work to make your business successful once they start pissing off every customer and client they come in contact with.

Taking a step back so you can see your entire business now, how many assholes do you really want on your payroll, and how many customers do you want to put them in front of? Pull out a piece of paper and write down a number. Do it. Write it down. How many assholes do you want on your payroll?

Next to that number, write down how many assholes you have on your payroll now. Go through your mental org chart, and start counting them in your head. When you’re done, write down how many assholes you know are in your company right now. If that number is higher than the first number you wrote down, you have some cleaning up to do.

In closing, let me leave you with the top 5 ways to make sure that your company starts becoming asshole-proof.

Top 5 ways of asshole-proofing your company:

1. Don’t hire assholes. They are bad for business, and they breed inside organizations like weeds.

2. Don’t promote assholes. The only thing worse than an asshole is an asshole with authority (including the authority to hire and promote assholes when you aren’t paying attention).

3. Give your current assholes the “opportunity” to go work for your fiercest competitor. Do this immediately. Make sure the door doesn’t hit them in the ass on their way out.

4. Once removed, replace your former assholes with nice, smart friendly people. (They’re out there and they want to work for you, but your assholes probably already turned them down. Go find them and invite them back.)

5. Reward all of your employees for NOT being assholes.

That just about takes care of it for today. Any questions?

Inspired (in a good way) by conversations with Julien Smith, Geoff Livingston, Keith Burtis, Chris Brogan, Kristi Colvin, Tyler Durden, Jeffrey Jacobs, Peter Shankman, among others.

*          *          *

And in case you haven’t picked one up yet (or your favorite client seems to be having trouble figuring out how to bring social media into their organization), you can pick up a fresh copy of Social Media ROI at fine book stores everywhere. If you have sworn off paper, you can also download it for iPad, Kindle, Nook or other e-formats at www.smroi.net.

(Click here for details, or to sample a free chapter.)

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Starbucks: Managing a brand’s expansion – Part 2

 

Source: http://www.funz.eu/2010/09/20/brand-tattoos-25-pics/

Problem: You have an established global brand but it is tied to a specific category. Your expansion plans require you to move outside of  that category. What do you do?

Solution A: Rebrand yourself in an effort to distance yourself from your core business and its ‘restrictive’ category. Become more generic in your focus while maintaining some degree of visual familiarity with an evocative but adaptable logo that can easily fit on anything, from laptops and wine glasses to media players and shampoo bottles.

Solution B: Create a hierarchy/structure for your company that allows you to expand into other categories while preserving your core business and successful brand anchors. Create a new logo if one doesn’t already exist to differentiate the corporate entity from consumer brands.

It appears that Starbucks has opted for Solution A:

I would have opted for option B:

 

Incidentally, this has been done before, and with pretty decent success:

 

 

 

GM's lineup - circa not 2011

 

Starbucks already owns at east two brands that have distanced themselves – if not from Starbucks itself – from the Starbucks logo: 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea, and Seattle’s Best. It stands to reason then, that Starbucks Corporate is perfectly capable (and willing) to manage more than just the Starbucks brand. Unfortunately, they are both coffee/coffee shop brands as well. Ideally, Starbucks should consider reversing its current model of branding various coffee endeavors under three different identities while trying to brand new business ventures under the Starbucks umbrella. The opposite – branding its coffee endeavors under the Starbucks Coffee brand while branding music, wine and everything else they experiment with as something non-Starbucks Coffee – would make more sense.

The question isn’t whether Starbucks should or shouldn’t expand into other markets – like music, wine, food, lifestyle products and even travel. Of course Starbucks should. Companies need to grow, and the coffee shop vertical simply won’t satisfy that need for the Seattle-based company. Starbucks therefore needs to expand elsewhere. Its successive attempts at creating extensions with music kiosks, wine and beer, candy, instant coffee and ice cream have all been good tests for the brand. The real question is: How does the coffee brand “uncoffee” itself enough to be able to transcend this category without diluting its brand – in that category?

Rebranding isn’t the solution. Removing “Starbucks Coffee” from the Starbucks Coffee logo isn’t it either. And making your biggest brand asset – the Starbucks cup of coffee – look bland and less than authentic isn’t it either. What this type of rebranding does is exactly what you want to avoid: It dilutes the brand, angers core customers, further increases the distance between consumers and the promise of the authentic Pike Street Starbucks experience, and does absolutely nothing to clarify Starbucks’ brand universe for consumers.

What you want to do is bring clarity to your brand environment and allow it to grow without disturbing your existing brands. You create something like this:

At the heart of the expansion puzzle for Starbucks seems to be the way the company views its own distribution channel: Starbucks coffee shops seem to have become labs for every “shift” idea. Overnight, coffee shops find themselves turned into music stores and sandwich joints and wine bars… and then back into coffee shops again when the latest idea doesn’t scale. This dependence on Starbucks Coffee stores is in and of itself a hurdle Starbucks needs to address in its quest for clarity. Truth is that if Starbucks wants to get into the wine business, Starbucks needs to start a wine business. If Starbucks wants to launch music stores, Starbucks need to launch music stores. What Starbucks cannot continue to do is dilute the coffee shop business with every new idea that comes along. This latest step – essentially “uncoffeeing” the Starbucks logo – further unanchors the Starbucks experience inside the coffee shops from the vital core coffee experience upon which Starbucks built its brand over the last 40 years. There is danger of diluting the brand in this way. Unfocused brands tend to lose relevance.

With the logo change, Starbucks’ brand narrative unravels itself into a loose brand extension grail quest:  By 2015, will we still be walking into coffee shops or will we be walking into lifestyle emporiums of music, gourmet pizza, protein smoothies and wine tastings? Will Starbucks also sell bread, like Panera? Will it sell donuts like Dunkin? Will it go after McDonalds by also offering gourmet burgers for lunch? Which begs the question:

What is Starbucks if its coffee business is no longer about coffee?

The question is much bigger than a logo redesign.

In order to change, Starbucks needs to think beyond the obvious logo update. The puzzle here, while not difficult to figure out, is a little more complex than a bit of uninspired graphic design wizardry. The company’s strategic expansion model needs a little clarity and structure. Starbucks need a plan more than it needs a new logo.

Focus, Starbucks. Focus. We love you and want to see you succeed, but you need to think this through just a little bit harder. The logo should have been just a cool little detail, not the centerpiece of what comes next.

Cheers.

 

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Social Media For Business: Taking Your Program Beyond Marketing Campaigns.

I posted a different version of this post a few months ago, but it’s time to bring it back up in case you, your client or your boss missed it.

First things first: Pushing your marketing campaign through social media channels isn’t “social.” It’s marketing. Nothing has changed.

Your marketing department or agency might be telling you that you have a social media program, but you don’t. You might be paying for “social,” but that isn’t what you are getting for your money. What is really happening is this: You are buying the same digital marketing campaigns you were buying five years ago, except now, they also include Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

You can call it “social” all you want, but it isn’t. Let me illustrate what I mean:

A marketing campaign not using social media

This (above) is a typical example of what happens in the course of a successful marketing, PR or advertising campaign. Best case scenario: You spend money on the campaign, the campaign generates attention while it is funded, people buy some of your stuff, and when the money runs out, things go back to where they were before the campaign started.

Now let me show you what happens when you incorporate social media into the same campaign mechanism. Ready? This is going to blow your mind. Here we go:

A marketing campaign using social media

Pretty wild, huh?

If you didn’t notice the subtle sleight of hand, let me illustrate the concept slightly differently. Ready?

Your campaign without social media:

And now the same campaign with social media:

See what happened here? Totally different thing, right? (Thanks to Daniel Agee for the clever visual subterfuge. Inserting a human head onto my body was pretty impressive photoshop mastery.)

So… right. In the end, it is exactly the same thing, just wrapped in a different skin.

If you are using social media channels for “marketing” and mostly for campaigns, no wonder you aren’t getting any concrete results: You are doing the same old stuff that already was working marginally well five years ago, only it has been repackaged to sound hip with the times and include a few more channels. That’s it. The only problem is this: You aren’t doing “social.” You are still basically just creating content, pushing it out to potential customers, and hoping they will bite.

And that is why you are getting nowhere in social media, no matter how many people click “follow” or “like” on your stuff.

Fact: Calling “marketing” by another name or adding “social media” to it won’t change what it is: Marketing. Just because your ad agency’s digital department has rebranded itself a “social media” department doesn’t mean anything has changed or improved. Same products and services, different skin. That’s it. Don’t limit yourself to that. If you want to make social media work for your organization, think beyond marketing. Think beyond campaigns. See the whole field.

By the way, if you are gauging success by measuring retweets, followers, shares and “likes,” I guess you also gauge success by measuring website hits, right? Same deal. Same ridiculous, empty, diversionary metrics that mean absolutely nothing. People clicking on buttons on the internet is about as valuable to your business as counting how many cars drive by your office every day.

Want to see the difference between a company that takes its social media program seriously versus one that only uses social media for marketing campaigns?

Here is what a business that uses social media for marketing looks like:

Each one of those arrows represents a campaign. If you think of campaigns as microcycles of spend, attention and impact, the above diagram shows six subsequent campaigns and their long term impact on business growth. The orange line above the campaign microcycles illustrates temporary jumps in sales or business growth, which tend to wane between campaigns but remain relatively flat over time. This line shows anywhere between 0% to 10% annual growth.

Now let’s look at companies using social media more holistically:

Note that in the above example, social media is used for more than just campaigns. The business is using social media not only to acquire new customers or trigger a spike in business, but to retain customers as well, to develop them into active community participants, loyal repeat customers, thereby increasing their buy rate, transaction yield, and their reach into lateral networks through organic word of mouth. In this model, campaigns are merely marketing microcycles of attention in a larger growth strategy focusing on building customer relationships.

Another way to look at the process is this:

If you aren’t familiar with plateaus, the stair-like portion of the diagram illustrates what role the campaigns play in a model where social media is integrated into a business in every department: customer service, technical support, community management, product management, PR, HR, R&D, etc.

In this model, campaigns drive attention and participation, just as before. Social media activity, through community management, online customer service, customer engagement and other truly social modes of social communications help maintain (even stabilize) customer participation not only in dialog but in transactions as well. Social communications become the answer to the “now what?” question asked in the first two diagrams of this post: Use each campaign to get you to the next level of attention and activity, and instead of letting it all die back down once the campaign is over, maintain it through engagement. Once things settle at that level, get to the next plateau using another campaign.

There’s a lot more to explain, but that would make for a very long blog post. I hope this was helpful.

Cheers,

Olivier

 

 

 

 

Pre-order Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization (Que Biz-Tech/Pearson) on Amazon.com or Barnes&Noble.com, or recommend it to someone today.

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Care or die: Because customer loyalty isn’t really rocket science.

If you don’t care about your customers (or as Gary Vaynerchuck would say, “if you don’t give a f*ck about your customers,”) you are wasting your time with social media.

Your customers aren’t wallet with legs. They are people, and here is the thing about people: People prefer to do business with people, companies and brands they like; people, companies and brands that make them feel good; people, companies and brands they trust; people, companies and brands they feel a connection with.

I don’t care how good your content is and how many people visit your site. Keep telling me how many fans and followers you have, and how many unique visitors your website gets. That all sounds great, and yeah, it looks pretty swell on paper. But the reality of your situation is this: If you don’t care about your customers, they will sense it, and they will return your apathy.

Do you know how to inspire loyalty in your customers? I’ll tell you: It isn’t by training them to expect 20% off or by sending them coupons in the mail. It isn’t by sending them rebate checks or making every tenth drink free. You inspire loyalty in your customers by demonstrating your loyalty towards your customers. That’s right: You have to give before you can receive. You, as a company, have to set the tone, and the only way to do that is to give a shit.

I walked into a Staples yesterday to buy a cartridge of ink toner. The plan: $22. I also walked out with an i-Omega portable hard drive and a few 4GB thumb drives for Red Chair. The outcome: $100+. You know how that happened? Simple: From the moment I walked into that store, its employees greeted me with smiles and treated me like they would a friend. They didn’t try to sell me anything, they didn’t push me towards any upgrades, and none of it felt contrived. They just seemed to care. Not only did the store increase its yield in this instance (and not by a mere 10-20%), it also ensured that next time I need something for the office, I will shop there instead of online or across the street at one of their competitors’ locations.

Staples loyalty verdict: Very high.

Compare that with my latest experiences at Bloom (a grocery store), where none of the people who work there even bother to make eye contact with me.

Bloom loyalty verdict: You must be joking.

Social media is not just another set of marketing channels for companies to push content and messaging. Sure, you can use it as a marketing channel (in moderation) but the power of the space is to scale those 1-1 interactions customers have around brands and the experiences they foster. Companies whose leaders and employees care tend to shine in Social Media. Companies whose employees and managers don’t care, even when they produce decent content, go nowhere in the space.

As a quick illustration of of what I mean, let us turn to Twitter: The marketing world’s 140-character “what the hell are we supposed to do with this channel” puzzle du jour.

I am going to show you two examples now. One of a beverage company that cares about its customers, and one of a beverage company that cares mostly about itself… and even talks to itself, though mostly to pat itself on the back for being like, awesome. You decide which is which.

Incidentally, it might be worth noting that one of these two companies has kind of struggled to acquire its 46,000 followers on Twitter over the last 2 years or so. The other has well over a million. Guess which is which. (Hint as to why: One focuses on customers and the other focuses on itself.)

Also, in case it wasn’t obvious, nothing says “I don’t really give a shit about you but heck, maybe you’ll buy something anyway” like an auto DM on Twitter. Don’t know what I am talking about? Here are some examples:

My favorite thing about those automated “hi, I really care” little nuggets of gold is the fact that so many of them get cut short: Look at the @Retail_City and @jobpsalms auto-DMs above. Okay, Job. I’ll “try to keep it REAL” if you d…

Way to make a good first impression in a SOCIAL medium. As executives, employees, brand ambassadors and representatives of your respective companies, do you walk around with a recording of yourself at parties and industry events? When someone shakes your hand, do you step aside so an assistant can hand them your card and deliver a 140-character sales pitch? When a client or customer walks up to you and says “hey, I’m glad I ran into you. I have a problem with the thing I bought from you,” do you respond by handing them a brochure and walking away? Of course not. So why is it that so many companies think that this is acceptable behavior in the social media space?

Give a shit. It really isn’t that complicated. If you just do that, if you start there, everything will fall into place. If you don’t give a shit, and you show it by monologuing with “content” and selling all day, guess what: You’ve already lost to the guy in your industry who takes the time to actually shake hands, and makes time for real dialog. It was always this way, but the integration of social media into the business world has amplified the effect: If as a company, you demonstrate daily that don’t give a shit about your customers, they will return the favor by not giving a shit about you. The implications are simple: The more customers care about you, the more likely it is that you will have a good quarter. The less they care about you, the more likely it is that you will have a lousy quarter. Some things, you can’t automate or outsource. Your relationship with customers is one of them. That applies to the web as well as the “in store” experience.

So here’s a thought: Instead of spending so much time working on your “content strategy,” your “digital strategy” and your “social media strategy,” why don’t you focus on your “we give a shit” strategy? Try that for a month and see what happens. Trust me, the “content,” “digital” and “social media” will take care of themselves. You will barely be able to keep up – and that will be a good thing.

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Social Media program planning 101: Purpose matters

The Bird Man of Notre Dame - ©2010 Olivier Blanchard

Just a quick note to start off the week: Purpose matters.

Just a year ago, many of us were bemoaning the absence of major brands on the twitternets, myself included. PR departments were too slow to get into the space. Brand managers were still, for the most part, alien to the world of Social Media. Most organizations were at best cautious to enter the space when not overtly reluctant to do so, even dismissive.

Today, as companies and their agencies are finally beginning to dip their toes and even try a few strokes on their own in the deep end of the pool, we seem faced with a different problem: An epidemic absence of purpose.

The thing (social media) has, in many instances, replaced the why.

Instead of hearing executives ask “can we use Social Media to increase our reach, to better manage our brand’s reputation, to improve customer service, to recruit better candidates or to grow our business,” what I still hear most often is “What should our Social Media strategy focus on?” Or, as it where “okay, we have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Now what?”

Wrong approach.

Here is how it works:

Business problem –> Business Strategy to solve the problem –> Incorporate Social Media into said business strategy

Example:

Business Problem: Angry customer voices are impacting our reputation. This threatens our ability to acquire new customers and retain existing ones. We could see a drop in sales over the next 6 to 18 months if we don’t fix this.

Business Strategy: Address angry customers’ concerns. Set the record straight on fallacies, while acknowledging legitimate grievances and promising to make necessary changes.

SM Integration: Monitor conversations in digital channels. Respond to positive and negative comments and mentions. Track changes in sentiment over time (manually). Establish discussion zones on appropriate social networks and via adequate social web platforms – This will help funnel topics and showcase the way we respond to the crisis. Use the space to ask for suggestions and ideas – This will help turn negative comments into constructive recommendations and a portion of angry customers into strategic assets. etc.

See?

Here is how it does not work:

Social Media is the new big thing –> Get into Social Media –> Develop Social Media Strategy –> Wait… what?

Every program or campaign an organization funds supports some kind of business objective:

Acquiring net new customers.

Retaining existing customers.

Attenuating a PR crisis.

Managing a company’s reputation.

Amplifying the reach of a particular message.

Selling more stuff.

Gathering business intelligence.

You name it. There are dozens upon dozens of possibilities. I am not even talking about R.O.I. here, but outcomes in general: Business outcomes. The types of outcomes which serve a purpose.

Wondering what an organization’s Social Media strategy should be is very much the same as wondering about what its telephone strategy would be: It is the wrong question.

Furthermore, as we will discuss later this week, if hiring a Social Media Manager serves the purpose of driving a Social Media strategy, then the purpose of the Social Media strategy is to drive… what? A Social Media Strategy? (No.) Strategies are driven by objectives and objectives are driven by purpose.

Before jumping into the Social Media pool (and you should), consider the why of it. As an organization, why do you want to be active in Social Networks? What will your activity there aim to drive for your business?  What is your purpose for being there?

To engage more? To participate in conversations? Okay. But why? Those are activities. They are not purpose.

Before launching a program or assigning resources to a new Social Media program, figure out where you want to go with it. Think about purpose and results, not just emulating your competitors.

Cheers,

Olivier

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Which brands do you wish you could help shine?

We’re all passionate about at least one company. One brand. One little logo or mark that got under our skin in a good way for one reason or another. My father has had a love affair with Aston martin, BMW, Smalto, Cartier, Omega, RayBan and Mont Blanc for as long as I can remember. My mother: Hermes, Celine, LeNotre, Autobianchi, Corvette and Baskin Robbins. My brother: Apple, Canon and Sony. It wasn’t always so, but brands help define us. Like it or not, they are part of our identity. The brands we choose to make our own make up a very visible outward-facing layer that gives our tastes and preferences texture, language and context: You’re either a Mac or a PC, a Canon or a Nikon, a Nike or an Adidas.

On a superficial level, the Kenneth Cole pants you wear tell an onlooker as much about you as the Starbucks cup in your hand and the Panerai watch on your wrist. But on a deeper, more emotional level, the success of a brand is something we find ourselves vested in, not just because our image may be tied to that of a company’s (its success implies our own), but because we genuinely care about the welfare of a brand which – in a very real way – is as much a part of our world as a favorite sports team, favorite artist, and even a friend or close relative.

When I was a kid, Sony was one of the brands I looked up to the most. Before Apple was Apple, Sony was – at least in my mind – the leader in electronics: Their first Walkman was the “it” product for quite some time, soon followed by their bright yellow (and other special edition colors – I had a black one) sports walkman. Their TVs and stereo systems were also among the most sought-after. Sony wasn’t necessarily first to market, but they still managed to own every market they focused on. Fast forward to 2010, and the picture changes. Sony is still here, still a major player in the electronics market, but far from the pole position it enjoyed 25 years ago. And as a childhood fan of the brand, as a life-long user of Sony products, it bothers me to no end. It isn’t as if Sony stopped making great products: Their Playstation 3 console is stellar. I am typing this blog post on a Sony VAIO that is by far the best PC/laptop I have ever owned. But… Sony’s market leadership is no more. No matter how great its products may be, it has lost its touch. Things simply aren’t the same anymore. And that can be fixed, dare I say… easily.

Sadly, the idea that brands are in a very real way living, breathing entities, that they are born, that they grow and mature and eventually die is one that seldom makes in into strategic discussions in the C-suite or in most Marketing departments. Yet it should be. Market share and sales numbers alone do not define the success and relevance of a brand. They never have. Ask Cartier. Ask Apple. Ask Starbucks and McDonald’s, even.

Everywhere I look, I see brands on the rise and brands faltering: Apple’s star has never shone brighter than it does now. Ford also weathered the storm that threatened to shatter the American auto industry less than two years ago, and came out of the gauntlet a better, smarter, cooler brand. Google hasn’t fared too badly either. They’re the lucky few. Others aren’t faring so well. Whether stalled or outright slipping downward, many brands seem to be struggling to either hold on to past glories or reach the next level in their rise to success, and it pains me. As a consumer and as a brand management guy, it actually weighs on me. I wish I could help them. I wish there were some way. Sometimes, I get lucky and I have an opportunity to help, but not often enough. Not nearly often enough. I was thinking about this in my car this morning, and started making a mental list of companies I wish I could advise, companies whose brands I wish I could help rebuild, and what I came up with looks like this:

Sony: Because it should be Apple’s biggest rival, and so easily could be. In short, Sony should own every market in which a product plugs into a wall or a USB port and emits a sound. Not only that, but the Sony brand has to restore its cohesiveness: Sony, like Apple, needs to be sought again. Its line of products can’t be scattered as it is now, its success jagged and unclear. The products are there, but there’s a lot of work to be done in terms of marketing, PR, awareness and promotion.

McDonald’s (US): Because it seems to have lost track of its own identity. Who are they trying to emulate this week? Starbucks? Strangely, this identity problem doesn’t seem to have spread to the European market. I visited three McDonald’s locations in France last month (two in Paris and one in Cannes), and the general consensus was this: “Why can’t McDonald’s be like this in the US?” The question stands: Why can’t it?  Added bonus: Why hasn’t McDonald’s penetrated grocery store and toy store markets yet?

Nike*: Because in spite of the best advertising, R&D and endorsements on the planet, it is making the same mistakes Sony did in the mid 1990s: Nike cannot hope to ride the momentum of its past success forever. Change always comes one way or another.

* This isn’t so much restoring Nike to market leadership as much as it is ensuring that it doesn’t let it slip from its fingers.

Starbucks: Because, like McDonald’s, it seems to have jumped the track. Confusion kills brands faster than bad logo redesigns, and sometimes growth can happen at the expense of everything else. Starbucks simply needs to find itself again and map out its future. Inconsistent experiences between locations (as with the McDonald’s brand) and the added confusion of non-Starbucks locations using the Starbucks logo also need to be tidied-up. I won’t even touch Seattle’s Best yet, but there’s another project.

Chevrolet: Because if Ford did it, so can Chevy. The difference between the two isn’t on the factory floor or in the design suite. Again, hard work but easy fix with the right application of market insight, leadership and courage. Chevy needs to stop thinking acting like a corporation that happens to make and sell cars, and shift its mindset to that of a company whose sole purpose is to inspire, delight and serve drivers everywhere.

Print (all brands): Because newspapers and magazines don’t have to die a slow agonizing death anymore than books do. Not anymore. Distribution and content are changing fast, but this evolution is an opportunity, not a hurdle. Change here is not the enemy. I would gladly dedicate the next five years of my life to this one thing. Companies can come and go, but print news keeps real journalism alive, and we cannot afford to let this industry fail. Not here, not now.

BP, Nestle, Monsanto, Halliburton, Eurostar, Toyota: Because they need it the most of any brand right now, and not everyone there has what it takes to turn their current situations into a string of market wins. Engineering a brand’s comeback takes a very specific skillset not everyone has in their bag of tricks.

Big Pharma (all brands – US): In the US, the model is cracked. Pharmaceutical companies don’t have the best image anymore. Their practices often seem shady. Consumer confidence could be better. In order for these brands to thrive in the next two decades, and in order to take full advantage of the changes in health care on the horizon for Americans, pharmaceutical companies need a cultural, communications and brand management overhaul. Nothing major, but the devil is in the details. Starting perhaps with a shift away from terms like “pharmaceutical” and “drug” to softer words like “medicine” and “care.”

Coca-Cola and/or Pepsi: Because market saturation doesn’t have to result in stalemate. There is still much to conquer for these brands, but they need to start thinking about how to redefine their markets, not just distract them with campaigns, PR and logo redesigns. They’ve plateaued, and something has to happen to catalyze them into rolling forward and up again.

* Again, this isn’t so much restoring either Coke or Pepsi to market leadership as much as it is preventing them from being in irons for the next ten years. They’ve reached the top. Now what?

Greenpeace: Because their message needs to get through to those who still think GreenPeace is an extremist organization. It can be at times, sure, but its role is much more complex and important to our future to allow it to continue being typecast as a bunch of crazed brick-throwing tree-huggers with unreasonable demands.

The Republican Party: Because it has lost its way, and if America is to soar again, both of its biggest political parties need to continuously force the other to new levels of excellence in order to outclass the other. The truth is that Democrats need a relevant Republican party as much as Republicans do. Rivalries keep us from growing soft and complacent. For the last ten years, the level of political discourse in the US has been slipping and frankly, it has reached an all time low. It’s embarrassing and needs to change. Our political system as it stands will continue to breed mediocrity, corruption and failure until we fix this.

Delta Airlines: Because in spite of its many flaws, Delta does some things very well and could be so much more than what it is to its passengers. I really want to see Delta become a shining example of what a major US airline could be. Quality can scale.

CNN: Simply because it could be great again. It once redefined the news business. It can and should do it again.

That’s a small selection, but a good place to start. What does your list look like?

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