Dell Idea Storm was created to interact with passionate consumers and one look at the number of people on these sites will tell you how involved consumers can get.
The objective is to get worthy ideas from users and worthy ideas surface because other consumers promote or demote the ideas, very similar to a digg methodology. Post - Promote - Discuss. The step added to this is "See" - See the company respond to worthy ideas & what they are doing to implement them.
The herd effect necessary to promote the ideas might result in no trend setting futuristic idea actually making it to the top. Consumers are after all never great crystal ball gazers but you do get to hear their views on simple things like Dell's excessive use of plastic. What might have been thought of as a necessary packaging element might come under the scanner thanks to this idea.
Dumb mistakes of someone in the organization also surface like the printing of the logo upside down.
An open conversation with your consumers can scare the wits of most companies, and it can expose many of your silly practices as is evident from these posts, but aren't companies much better off with consumers revealing their frustrations with the product.
The problem with this approach is that the marketing team alone cannot engage the consumer in conversation. They have to get the other departments within the organization ready to change according to popular consumer appeal. (actually this is market research for free)
For eg: the movement towards Open Office got a whopping 138479 votes. Most companies would give anything to have so many engaged consumers and what does Dell do - Nothing!! A very highly debated topic and difficult to give one company stance, but you have to take one when so many people are waiting to hear it.
These are progressive steps taken by Dell to join the conversation and in fact control it at some level by bringing it under their wing. They still need to sustain this initiative by adding it to the DNA of the company. This can no longer be just a good initiative, it has to be a way of business.
P.S - If you think the engaged consumer only exists in the case of high involvement goods like electronics, Starbucks created My Starbucks Idea with a similar objective. Check out what happens when you get some coffee fanatics together in one place.
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Its the Conversation economy dude!!
Marketing 2.0 vs Marketing 1.0
The reason everything is wrong with traditional marketing is that it talks down to the consumer. It tells you what is right for you and not necessarily engages you and lets you decide for yourself.
Why should I waste my time trying to explain it, when this video does all that and more
There is a reason why this blog is called Marketing Amnesia. The reason is, if I talked to my wife like I chose to in a traditional advertisement, she would stand up, punch me in the face, kick me in the b%$#s and walk away.
Now that could be a wee bit painful...
Instead of being forced to forget traditional marketing, why not choose to do so.
P.S - Marketing Sucks when its not done right. If you would like to stay updated with the best techniques, do subscribe
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Its the Conversation economy dude!!,
Consumers are talking !! Are brands listening?,
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The eternal debate between Finance and Marketing teams in every organization is the calculation of a return on investment for the marketing spend.
This has led to many marketers focusing on Conversion - wherein every ad is measured in terms of either a lead generated or sales. The concept is that, if you have got the consumer to buy now, then the ad must be truly engaging.
The problem with this approach is that marketers try to give the consumer a hook to purchase now and that hook is very often a promotion / freebie.
Conversion as the basis of marketing spend justification is a very narrow approach. You are targeting the one consumer who has seen your advertising and no one else and he buys your brand partly because it has an offer attached.
Nothing earth shattering about the fact that great brands are built when people talk positively.
A new measurement has to be used to track marketing spends. Social Media has allowed conversation to spread rapidly on the internet and at the same time allow companies to track it. Conversation tracking could well be the measure we are looking for.
Once tracked, Should you control it is another question and another post.
Conversation tracking does seem like the way forward to measure marketing spend. How do you attach a value to the conversation generated is the question?
P.S Just wondering if Conversation Economy is an original term that I can claim as my own. Have you read about this anywhere else?
Update: I am not a genius after all :)
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Concept of Conversion vs Conversation derived from The 3 philosophies of Word of Mouth Marketing
Every now and then I like to dish out some basic stuff. Today is one of those "Now and Then" moments
While discussing Marketing 2.0 with a fellow brand manager, I was dishing out some of the regular stuff on Web 2.0, the conversation age, how to get consumers to talk and more importantly why you should encourage conversation with the consumer.
A simple question asked goes like this - Till a few years ago, the marketing team of any organization controlled any mass communication on the product, why will the brand manager encourage consumers to talk when he is unsure of what they will say.
How can control be established over the brand communication. How can one message be communicated to all.
It is not as easy as it was in a non interactive media world. TV, Radio and Press lent themselves to consistent messaging. The internet is more complex, banner advertising can have a single message but how can conversation which is supposed to be breed further conversation also be controlled?
Initial thoughts suggest that marketers have no choice but to track conversations using a number of tools. The most obvious tool is google alerts followed by technorati for tracking blog conversation. Another useful tool for tracking conversations especially on twitter is Summize. Tracking is insufficient, you need to participate too.
What would you suggest? How do you track conversation on the net and what would you do to control it? Would you control it at all?
Update: Get Satisfaction allows you to express your love and hate for a company and even encourages companies to get involved with their consumers. A tool which every company should use.
