consumer (re)connect: online marketing communications for instima

1 Conversation readiness © In

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Consumer (re)connect. Why brands should commit acts, not ads and design conversation-worthy engagement. (and some other things that don‟t sound like I took it from the marketing bullsh*tbingo dictionary)

Polle de Maagt (Insites Consulting) for Instima

Photo: Skittles

http://www.polledemaagt.com/

http://polledemaagt.com/about/insites-consulting



http://www.insites.eu/


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Hello. I am Polle de Maagt.

I failed in most things during my

life (including being a rock star) but am

still trying to reach #worlddomination.

This time by helping companies change

to be more about acts and

conversations, less about ads.

Guess that makes me a change agent.

http://www.ministryofworlddomination.com/

http://www.ministryofworlddomination.com/

Read the manual.

Seriously.

Read it.

http://polle.me/ebdQAu

Let’s discuss Waaay waaaaaaay back …

And the people?

Reconnecting with consumers.

Acting like a change agent.

Designing for engagement.

Designing for sales.


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Waaay waaaaaaay back … … we started out trading goods and services for goods and services. One

person helps another one with goods or service and gets rewarded for that.

Happy people would tell others about it and that’s pretty much the way you grew

your business.

But businesses changed.


Some businesses started departments and different layers. Some people within these business didn’t even speak or see their customers anymore on a regular basis.

Some businesses started to talk like a company, not like people. They installed fancy corporate communication policies. Some businesses changed personal contacts for marketing (even more: militairy) speak like

„contact-strategy‟, “target” and “target-audience”.

Some businesses felt personal contact cost them money and started callcenters and made it more difficult to contact them. Some businesses started to reward their employees for speed, share of wallet and upselling, not

for service quality or service.

Some businesses started to think about how much money they could make from different services, instead of supplying service.

Some businesses adopted fancy technology to deal with people. Zappos does an amazing job in making

technology invisible and really

understanding consumers.

(Thanks Steven Verbruggen for the tip!)

Some businesses felt that helping indivi- duals didn’t make that much sense. You might be surprised that 11% of all organizations doesn’t answer

customer emails. Even more when you know that exceeding customer

expectations builds loyalty (81% repeats, 63% recommends) and falling

below customer expectations erodes loyalty (5%/71%).

So start helping.

Some business started to stress their technical benefits, instead of investing in real connections.

Some businesses thought getting new customers was cooler than keeping your current ones.

Some businesses thought that if people don’t listen you just have to scream louder.

Some businesses over-rationalized and forgot about the power of random kindness.

Some businesses forgot that everything you do is communication. That employees talk and even more, acts talk loudest.

And some businesses … well, you get the idea.


And the people?






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And the people? They pretty much kept doing what they were already doing.

They kept buying stuff.

They kept talking about businesses and products.

But somewhere, slowly they started to change.

Because of the way businesses treated them, but also because of new

technology that had emerged.


They started to be 24/7 and realtime. KLM helps customers Monday to Sunday from 8AM to 11PM. That

is almost a 24/7/365 realtime customer support center. Imagine the

implications for your organization.

They started to have a lower tolerance for bad customer service.

They started orienting and buying online.

They started expressing their love for brands and businesses in unprecedented ways.

They used tools to make their own ideas happen.

They started buying things together. What do you want your consumers to talk about? About pricing or something else?

However, recognize the lead-potential and social buying mechanics.


And the people?






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Reconnecting with consumers. And while businesses and people kept evolving, the gap widened and widened.

And now we got to the point where companies should change. To reconnect

again.


And it’s not about being on Facebook. Or Twitter. Yes, Twitter is huge. And Facebook even bigger. But they are both platforms, not end

goals. So it really is about if and how both can help you reach your end goal. Which is

most likely not about having a Facebook fan page and more about driving

conversations, customer retention, sales or brand value.

http://www.facebook.com/polledemaagt

It’s not about being a big brand. With big brands come big problems. Never look

for an excuse in just being a small company with

little budgets. When it comes to connecting with

consumers, real relationships work. And size, for

once, doesn’t matter.

And it certainly isn‟t about being the first mover in adopting new technology. Mobile, augmented reality, location

based services are all just awesome.

And yes, there is PR-value in being the

first Augmented Reality bakery in your

neighborhood. But is that really what

you want your consumers to talk

about?


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Reconnecting with consumers. We’ve grown so far apart, that we do not need small change, but radical change

to reconnect.

Change that finally brings consumers back in the boardroom.

Change that embraces people, not targets consumers.



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Expectation

Over-delivery Makes positive conversations

Over-the-top-delivery Makes negative conversations

Under-delivery Makes negative conversations

Delivery Gives no reason to talk

Be maniacal about managing expectations. Under-promise, over-deliver in everything you do. Not only towards customers but

also to your colleagues.

Act human.

Really do something for your consumers.

KLM showed they were really recognizing the person behind every customer. With the KLM Surprise campaign, they surprised customers based on their

Foursquare and Twitter checkins. Talking about remarkable customer service …

http://www.polledemaagt.com/clients/klm


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From ads to acts: Nike changed the way people run. Nike could have done another

advertising campaign. Instead, they

did everything to create the coolest

running club ever, the Nike

RunHouse.

And they went even further, they

used smart technology to make

people run different routes and

longer distances: the Nike+ Graffiti

Challenge.

http://www.polledemaagt.com/clients/nike




Embed new ways of measuring success. Try measuring the Net Promoter

Score to see how likely it is that your

colleagues will recommend your

company.

Isn‟t she cute? It helped Antwerp Zoo to capitalize on their unused potential: their animals and employees. It brought them 300.000 extra visitors, a nomination for product of the year and the

best thing … the number one carnival suit of that year.


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Act on your pot of gold. Recognize both monetary and conversation value.


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Bring your sales where the customers are. Bring the sales where your clients are.

Embrace co-creation. More than 60% of all consumers and employees want to help to make your product or organization really better. Facilitate them to do so.

Advocacy is the new retention is the new acquisition.

Embrace company culture and identity instead of marketing façade.


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Design to be conversation-worthy on every level. Design your acts to be worth talking about and worth sharing. Plan for

touchpoints, people and conversion.

http://www.polledemaagt.com/blog/models-frameworks/being-conversation-worthy-on-every-brand-level/





And the people?






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Acting like a change agent. That isn’t easy. That means we need change agents, people who help change

companies and reconnect businesses and people. Actually, reconnect people

within a business and people.

Act like a change agent.



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Conversations: Observe, Facilitate, Join. Watch, make it easy to share and join.


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Define a clear goal and scope for your efforts. Make sure you are clear about goals, internal and external expectations.


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Ben & Jerry’s a brand with high potential. Have a look at your brand/product portfolio and see what works. Ben & Jerry’s has a

clear purpose, fans and an impressive digital infrastructure in place already. A logical

choice to start your efforts.


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Have a look at the consumer journey. What are the touchpoints that influence the consumer?


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Proactive versus reactive. Decide on reactive versus proactive and marketing versus service.


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Touchpoints, people and content. Plan for three different kinds of properties.


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Managing change. Implementing conversations and consumer connect isn’t easy. Use different

change mechanisms to gradually change the organization.


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Pilots: Intrinsic, Learning and Change KPI’s. Make sure pilot projects define clear goals on intrinsic KPI’s, learning KPI’s and

change management KPI’s.


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Telenet launched a new product that wasn’t finished: Telenet Yelo, an application to watch tv anywhere. Instead of waiting for the product to be completely finished or selling something that

didn’t work, they asked their customers to help to make the product better.


And the people?






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Designing for engagement. The difference between online marketing, online marketing campaigns and

gradual engagement.



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Facebook forces engagement. A lot of campaigns are designed to

collect Facebook likes. To be able

to tap into the consumer news

feed, however, a consumer had to

have a recent interaction with a

brand. "News Feed (…) is a constantly updating list of stories from people and Pages that you follow (…) bases this on a few factors: how many friends are commenting on a certain piece of content, who posted the content, and what type of content it is (e.g. photo, video, or status update)".


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Gradual engagement. Gradual engagement starts from small interactions between brands and consumers.

Interactions, to engage consumers by little baby steps. Small steps that, all together,

make a giant leap. But more importantly, people are engaged 24/7/365, not just

during campaigning season.


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Example? Skittles’ smart triggers. Using great copy and teasing visuals Skittles engages thousands of consumers every

single time they post a wallpost on Facebook. It creates a continuous stream of small

but extremely pleasant interactions.


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Engagement funnel. Engagement isn’t just for fun. We’re working to build a brand here. Interactions

should be designed to engage consumers, not to spam them or yelling louder

and actually take them further into brand engagement.


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Engagement funnel: campaigns versus programs. Campaigns are large adhoc efforts to force reach. Programs are constant small

interactions to activate consumers to stay engaged or (preferably) move further into the

engagement funnel.

Thanks to my buddy Jourik Migom for highlighting the difference between campaigns and programs.

Large campaign to

gather followers

Compelling copy

Adwords campaign

http://www.elasticminds.org/contact.html




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Il Giglio d’Oro, a simple bed & breakfast in Firenze turned every customer > advocate. It helped them to become the #1 bed & breakfast in Italy and #8 bed & breakfast in

Europe. Conversion between stumbling and endorsing.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187895-d1433880-Reviews-Il_Giglio_d_Oro_B_B-Florence_Tuscany.html





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Turkcell created continuous live interaction. To promote it’s mobile offering, Turkcell created a live twitter-based

game. Based on twitter interactions, post-its would be removed or

changed. Conversion from stumbling to folllowing / endorsing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSgk7YOigG8&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSgk7YOigG8&feature=player_embedded


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The spotlight tactic. See KLM Surprise, Volkswagen Fun Theory, the Coca Cola Happiness machine and this one. A small thing worth sharing and putting a spotlight via media.


And the people?





Polle de Maagt for InSites Consulting

InSites Consulting Social sales. At the end of the day, we want to make money. The most obvious social sales is direct sales: convert

people from your touchpoint to sales. However, a large part of eventual sales is consumer-initiated (e.g.

they talk about products) or indirect (e.g. people see a facebook fanpage and go to the .com later).

So, what can brands do to stimulate direct and indirect sales?

Indirect

Brand initiated

Consumer initiated

Dire

ct

Giftwrap offering

Social as reach

Social as relevant

Social as sales

Engage-ment

program

Source-mapping

Affiliate

ENGAGING Stimulate consumer to talk so that

they activate their peers to buy.

PRIMING Consumers have seen a social

brand presence but act later.

Stimulate to act.

SOCIAL OFFERING Design the offering to be social.

ACTIVATING Make it easy for consumers to

directly influence others to buy.

1) Social as reach. It’s the 2011 equivalent of a mailinglist or bannering: just use social media

for reach purposes.

2) Leverage social sales: buying together. Be smart in offering deals: make it social.

3) Have a conversation-worthy sales offering. Make sure people can talk about your offering.

4) Recognizing personal conversation value. Recognize both monetary and conversation value.

You can forget most of the things I told you today. But please, remember these 5 things.


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1) Businesses got out of touch with people without even realizing it. Be honest. Where did you get

out of touch with the people

who buy your products and

services?

2) Nothing changed. Everything changed. Recognize you have to change the way you communicate. Commit acts, not ads.

3) Observe, Facilitate, Join. Watch, make it easy to share and join. Repeat.


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4) Design to be conversation-worthy on every level. Design your acts to be worth talking about and worth sharing. Plan for

touchpoints, people and conversion.






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5) Plan for engagement. Engagement isn’t just for fun. We’re working to build a brand here. Interactions

should be designed to engage consumers, not to spam them or yelling louder

and actually take them further into brand engagement.


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I hope I was conversation-worthy.

If so: spread the word.

Find me on twitter (@polledemaagt) or

just send me an email at

[email protected].

Download the presentation at

http://polle.me/instima2011

http://twitter.com/polledemaagt

http://twitter.com/polledemaagt

mailto:[email protected]



consumer (re)connect: online marketing communications for instima

Business

people dont

businesses overrationalized

dealwith people

happy people

change agent

maagt insites consulting

different services

business didnt