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 :)
Related Articles
Consumers are talking !! Are brands listening?,
Marketing 2.0 vs Marketing 1.0
What is wrong with traditional marketing
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.
This post is a result of an interesting discussion with Nithya of Muziboo fame. Muziboo is a young startup, which reaches out to the musician in everyone. Finally there is a space which goes beyond encouraging just young bands to encouraging individuals interested in music. More on Muziboo in another post
This network is based on common interests in music, and not necessarily on an existent friend network. In such a situation, it is not necessary that you know an individual on the site in person, but you might still want to be updated on new music or live events planned by the musician.
To remain updated there are really 3 options that Muziboo can provide - "Add as Friend (like Facebook), Follow (like in Twitter) or Become a Fan (like in Stumbleupon)
Add as friend seeks reciprocation, while the other 2 do not. Add as a friend seeks to strengthen bonds, while the others allow weak bonds to co exist.
Which one do you think is most appropriate for Muziboo? If you used this platform and found a cool musician which option would you choose to connect and why?
Update - Tracked Evan Williams the Co Founder of Twitter on Twitter. Have requested him to air his views on "Why Twitter chose Follow as its option to connect users, when other available options were Add as Friend or Become a Fan"
He is a busy guy and he might not have the time to reply, but if we get one, I am sure it will be insightful.
Well I seem to be in the mood to pit competing thought processes against one another. The last post on Technology vs Story was on startups who build technology thats superior, instead of focusing on positioning their brand such that it becomes easy for a consumer to tell a story about them.
This one is on social media and how to build a brand which uses them. The internet has always been about interactivity and relevance. An ad doesn't get your attention because they slapped it bang in the middle of an interesting article or while you were watching a really funny video.
Correction, attention is certainly got, in fact the company has probably just incurred your wrath!!
Facebook, Myspace and the likes know that companies love the easy way out. So they sell highly targeted ad space to companies. Undoubtedly companies see value since they have never been able to target their communication as precisely as this with traditional media .
But, we are just extrapolating traditional advertising meant for non interactive medium in a medium which is all about interactivity and engagement.
This calls for new thinking and different content that engages you, provides value, makes you laugh or is just cool, and in turn begs to be forwarded using social media. The medium could be social networks or social bookmarks.
Content could be anything from articles, one liners, jokes, digs at competition, pictures, audio, video, applications or games.
Do you as a company want to buy eyeballs or earn them. One costs you money, the other makes you think creatively on how you would like to engage the consumer.
Surely brand engagement is what everyone dreams about. If you have done something on Social Media to benefit your company, startup or brand, do let us know
There have been enough and more imitations of the facebook and orkut models of social networking.The "Me too's" claim they are different because they are made for the Indian context.
An additional level of differentiation is the target group, a social network aimed at college students only is a simple example.
Reality is that everyone wants to ride the same "wave" and end up knocking each other off their surf boards.
Marketing Spends determine registrations. Awareness creation requires high spends and the revenue model is non existent for most players.
While everyone has been busy creating the same thing with a few different features, there has been one startup which probably has a bulk of the same features, but evolved a fantastic story.
The inspiration for this post is LifeBlob. I caught a part of their presentation at Barcamp Bangalore and it was amazing how a "Story" can change what would have otherwise been termed as yet another social networking site.
Lifeblob is very simply your entire life on a timeline. In their own words
"Just like you would write in your personal diary about your experiences, the events that happened in your life and stick pictures to make it memorable, we allow you to make posts on your timeline to capture those precious memories. What differentiates lifeblob is that your timeline has a social angle to it. When you make a post, you can include a list of people who are related to the post or who were participants if the post is about a real event. And in a flash, the post not only becomes a part of your timeline, but also becomes a part of the timelines of all the participants."
I just managed to subscribe to their service (which is restricted currently). The features are similar to other networks. You can blog, upload photographs / videos, add friends etc. The only new feature is you can attach a date to all of the above, and browse your life on a timeline. This suddenly changes the story.
The offering becomes different and the positioning is unique. The consumer has a story to tell about the startup rather than describe it in terms of cool features. Adoption by the masses is obviously much easier when the story is easily retold. (which is exactly what I am doing)
So if you are starting up and are looking for the next technological leap which will put you ahead of competition, remember that it probably doesn't matter as much as your story.
Let me know what your story is and if you want one, get in touch with me for a positioning analysis.
Buzz, Viral and Word of Mouth are terms which are sometimes used interchangeably.
Lets try and demystify these terms with a brief definition and a detailed presentation on Viral Marketing.
Buzz Marketing - A publicity gimmick which generates PR and gets the media biggies talking about you. Typically a weird and wacky stunt that serves as a great story for the media.
Viral Marketing - Online advertising campaigns that depend on peer to peer forwarding to spread like a virus
Word of Mouth - This is the Holy Grail. It is the sharing of opinion on a product or service typically after one has experienced it.
A detailed presentation has been attached. The viral examples are from an Indian Context. The rest of the content is universally applicable.
Just happened to be listening to "Kryptonite" by "3 Doors Down" and who knew that I could borrow the song for a post.
Superman was created on Krypton and can only be destroyed by a substance from the same planet - kryptonite.
Though that just sounds ironical, the question to ponder on is - Do marketers and companies have a kryptonite of their own? The answer seems simple - loyal consumers create a great company.
On the other hand, dissatisfied consumers now possess the power to bring these large organizations down. Blogs, review sites and the all too obvious networking phenomenon enable dissatisfied consumers to reach thousands of eager listeners.
Apple worked hard at creating an iconic status through the years. They launch innovative products with ease and then they screw it up.
Consumers love the company for the product, but they slip in something underhanded like a tie up with AT&T or a price drop in less than 2 months of the iphone launch. In fact following widespread crticism, Apple was forced to offer $100 credit for a purchase at an Apple store.
This results in the loyal fan, early adopter and advocate suddenly thinking twice before recommending the product. In fact it is suddenly cooler to say "I hate Apple" compared to "I love Apple"
That sounds very dangerous to me. Apple - The larger you become, the harder will be the backlash. Beware of your Kryptonite.
There has been enough said about Consumer Loyalty, Customer Lifetime Value and other such concepts. The one thing on everyone's mind is how to create consumer loyalty. This post will not give you a ten step process to address that issue.
What this post seeks to question is how many people within your organization are addicted to your product?
Would your employees use competition, if they were free to do so. Most companies have rules which forbid competition products from being used within the firms premises.
This kills the easiest feedback you will ever get. If you have to enforce rules on your employees to ensure loyalty, you might as well close shop and exit the business while you still have time and more importantly money.
So create products that your employees want. Earn the right to their loyalty, do not force it down their throats. If you achieve it, you have a marketer in every employee of your company who truly stands for and believes in the company.
Before I ask for your views, here is a quote from Steve Jobs in a recent interview on the key to Apple's success
"The team worked really hard. And the reason that they worked so hard is because we all wanted one. You know? I mean, the first few hundred customers were us"
Traditional Marketing represented as Marketing 1.0 was about hitting the consumer with 360 degree communication, so that the consumer finally succumbs to buying your brand.
Marketing 2.0 is about engaging the consumer in a conversation, hence building trust and authenticity in a low trust world. The conversation could be a query on a brand, honest feedback on a product or co creation of communication content. The opportunities are immense, but the effort required is enormous.
* Image derived and adapted from - Creating Digital Dialogs - A Social media Overview
There was a time when landline numbers had to be written in a diary or etched in memory. There were no fancy mobile phones with unlimited storage memory.
You had to remember the phone number of a person if you had to chat with him/her. The phone number was the only way you could be reached. If you had an easy number, people could remember it and hence reach you when they needed you. Hence everyone wanted a number which went 12345678.
The domain name is similar to the telephone number. Most of the type in traffic needs to remember the portal name in its actual form, if they want to visit the website. If you don't know it, you won't be able to reach the portal (if you don't know the number, you can't reach the person).
Custom Save Numbers
Now you can store the number of people you would like to stay in touch with, in a format and name you choose. His phone number could be complicated but it does not affect you.
I have names of companies stored in a way I can understand and access easily. The names are typically related to a benefit I associate with them. So I need a bill register for my startup cafe, I call the person "Bill register Andy" - His company is called Total Retail Solutions but I couldn't care less.
Custom Save Websites
Websites are increasingly being stored in a customized manner using social bookmarks and feed readers, as already described in Can you succeed when your domain name suxx!!. Going forward, is there a possibility that the importance of a domain name will be reduced to inducing the first few visits. Once the visitor is convinced of the websites utility, he might just choose to save it with a name he is comfortable with.
To give you an example, I visit a page with a long and convoluted name (many /'s and .net attached to it) everyday at work to get past Websense, and I don't think it would have made a huge difference to my visiting pattern if it were called http://www.circumventor.com.
The site is just too useful, and I will visit it irrespective of what its called. All I do is type the first 2 letters and this is one of the first few sites suggested by my browser navigation bar. I have also saved it as a bookmark on my browser and on delicious as, yup you guessed right "Circumventor".
Now I am sure it would make life easier if its domain name were easy too, but the lack of it does not affect my visiting pattern as I have already custom saved it.
Can there be more changes expected?
The future for browsers could well be to introduce a feature which allows you to custom save your website in the browser navigation bar. This will allow you to type "search" and not "google" to search the web. (extreme example - but you get the point)
We might even have an online browser (like virtual desktops are in place), so that you can easily access your frequently used websites, from any location, with a name that you choose to associate with them and a navigation tool bar that allows you to brand the websites and not depend on their domain name.
Hence what your domain name is called can progressively become irrelevant to the all powerful web user. He might just choose to brand you more than you can brand yourself.
