Posts filed under ‘Word-of-Mouth’
Word of Mouth From the Inside Out
Navel Marketing helps create organizations worth talking about and then arm customers to spread the word. On the surface, this may seem like a simple enough task, but too many companies today focus the majority of their efforts on how to get the word out with little thought as to why someone would care. Whether you choose to use more traditional tactics, such as advertising, or new methods, such as social media, your target market needs to know why you matter before they invest any time or emotion in your brand.
Marketing today is about meaning. Customers buy products but evangelists buy causes. You have to mean something in the marketplace before someone will take notice of your communications and, most importantly, tell others about them. Navel Marketing helps you develop the inner tools that create meaning for your customer, such as a cause, a unique and compelling position, a culture that reflects your cause, a simple repeatable message, a viral customer experience, and more. We then implement word-of-mouth marketing tools to help arm your customers spread the word.
E-Book Readers Are For Influencers
Recently, I was struck by a statistic that was highlighted in a July New York Times article. The article pointed out the fact that Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, is now selling more e-books than hard covers for the first time in history as of the second quarter of 2010. In fact, it was selling almost 1 1/2 times the number of e-books to hard covers. This trend doesn’t show any sign of slowing down either. In the 4 weeks prior to the article, that ratio was approaching 2 e-books to every hard cover.
Many credit the proliferation of e-book readers such as Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Sony’s Reader, or Apple’s iPad for driving the consumption of e-books. Though Sony’s Reader has been out for several years, it was the introduction of Amazon’s Kindle in time for the Christmas shopping season in 2007 that launched this rapidly growing trend. The combination of hardware, content, and wireless access was the missing spark that lit the e-book powder keg. It is no coincidence that what started it all was a product called the “Kindle”.
As the proud owner of a Nook, I am amazed at how easy it is to buy, read, and share e-books. I have always been an avid reader (in my adult life anyway), however, I read significantly more with the device than I did before. There are always free e-books that are on promotion and many authors are even giving away the first book in a series in order to get you hooked (I can attest to the fact that it works). I have an e-wishlist with 30 books on it and add one every time I hear about a new book that interest me. Sometimes when I am just sitting around (which isn’t often) or waiting for a plane and get the hankering to read, I just surf the Barnes & Noble eStore to see what’s available.
However, there is an even bigger reason for the growth in e-book sales. In fact, it reminds me of a client I had in another industry. Roaring Springs Water Park is the largest water park in the Northwest. Their season pass program gave the deepest discount to its customers and they considered getting rid of the program. What we did was help them understand that those people who buy season passes were the influencers. They were people who were so passionate about Roaring Springs, they knew they would come to the park enough to warrant a season pass.
Instead of doing away with the season pass program, we helped them add significantly more value through added perks and offerings. One of those was Buddy Tuesdays, where season pass holders could bring a friend for $10. They also stayed open an extra hour on Mondays, just for season pass holders as well as offered a 4th of July BBQ for $1 – again, just for those who were members of “the club”. The result – increased season pass sales and a 30% jump in profit the first year from people who would not only come to the park, but stay longer and spend more money.
How does this relate to e-books? Those who purchase e-book readers are like season pass holders at Roaring Springs. These are the influencers and evangelists. These are those who read so often that they know an e-book reader will be worth the investment. As such, they are shifting their reading habits from regular books to e-books and the book sellers as seeing the shift.
How are Amazon and Barnes & Noble appealing to this crowd? By offering a package of value that goes beyond just buying books cheaper. Those who own e-book readers are part of a club. They get special deals, can lend books to friends, and (in the case of Barnes & Noble) even have dedicated content when you bring your Nook into a store.
What does this mean for the future of the industry? Books will never go away, however, as your influencers and evangelists shift their reading habits you will continue to see a shift in the balance of power. Before, the publishing and distribution process was controlled by a select few. Now e-book readers are making it much more simple to publish and distribute your intellectual property. Barnes & Noble even has a new program called Pubit! that allows to publish your e-book directly to their library. Amazon has its Digital Text Platform which accomplishes the same thing. ePublishing sites like YUDU and Scribd make self-publishing simple and social. The iPad even allows you to have all these ePublishing libraries on one device.
When your influencers are on the move, so goes your industry. The publishing industry is seeing a seismic shift similar to digital music, television programming, and movies on demand. Some might say these earlier movements paved the way. However, one thing is for sure – the book industry is changing forever. Who will lead and who will follow? Who will be caught saying, “it’s just a passing fad”? How will the democratization of publishing affect the quality of the content? All these questions and more have yet to be answered.
Where do you think the growing demand for e-books will take the industry?
If Social Media Were a Planet…
Many people refer to their geeky friends who spend all of their time in social media land as “living on their own planet.” Well, apparently now there is a map of that planet.
A recent Mashable story showcased how the social media landscape has changed in a short 3 years. Back in 2007, web comic XKCD published the original “Map of Online Communities”. If you visit the Mashable article, you can see the original compared to the latest rendition. Notice how the relative size of communities and online tools have changed between 2007 and the one created for 2010 by marketing firm, Flowtown, below. Twitter didn’t really exist back then, MySpace ruled the world of social communities, and “Farmville” would likely get you some strange looks.
Though many social media “experts” would have you believe that social media marketing means getting thousands of followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook, the landscape is always changing. I have often said that the tools will come and go, but the principles of marketing in a connected world will not. You still have to create something worth talking about, no matter the community in which your customers choose to talk about you.
Word of Mouth Marketing – Dilbert Style
A recent Dilbert cartoon nailed most companies’ approach to word of mouth marketing:
After you have yourself a quick chuckle, you’ll realize how much truth there is in this simple comic strip. How many companies today have heard of word of mouth marketing as a tactic and decide they need to add it to their “marketing mix”? I know have had too many companies approach me asking if I can do some of that “word of mouth stuff” for them. The problem is that marketing doesn’t happen in campaigns.
Let me share a secret I shared with the attendees at a recent workshop I conducted. The secret to word of mouth marketing is this:
- Create an organization worth talking about
- Engage with your customers
- Arm them to spread the word for you
Notice step 1 is to have something worth talking about. How many companies do you know who miss that first, critical step?
How do you become a company worth talking about, you ask? Check out the “innie” model for a few ideas.
Any examples of companies you have seen who seem to epitomize the comic strip above?
LinkedIn is the Business Lunch, Facebook is the Cocktail Party
One of the most often asked questions I receive is “when do I use LinkedIn and when do I use Facebook?” People, especially business professionals, are looking to take advantage of popular social networks as a way to build their personal networks, add to their “Rolodex”, and build professional relationships that can help them further businesses and careers. So when it comes time to select somewhere to spend your time, the natural question is, “where do I focus?” (Twitter is also effective, but we’ll leave that one aside for now)
The short answer is – both. It seems like a lazy answer, but let me explain why. When you want to build a true relationship with someone in the analog world (not online), how do you typically go about it? You will most likely set up some sort of formal meeting, such as a business lunch. Once you get through the formalities and a couple of business lunches, you begin to build your relationship on more of a personal basis. It is at that point you feel more comfortable talking about family, hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc. This is typically something you would do at a cocktail party or after hours event, such as grabbing an adult beverage together.
If you want to build lasting relationships with high value contacts, start with LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the online equivalent of the business lunch – quick, professional, exchange of business cards, a few probing questions, etc. Once you have built your relationship at the professional level, try broaching the personal realm using Facebook. Facebook is the cocktail party. This is an area where you can ask, “how are the kids doing?”, “how was the fishing trip?”, and “how is the new house coming?”.
Online relationships often mimic what we do offline. Take advantage of all the opportunities you have to connect with people. However, just because you are “connected” doesn’t mean you are friends. As the old saying goes, people do business with friends. We have unprecedented access to each other. Use that access to build friendships, both online and off.
Are The 4 Ps Dead?
(The following is an excerpt from the Introduction of the upcoming book Marketing From the Navel: How to Become a Company Worth Talking About and Arm Customers to Spread the Word)
The 4 Ps
In 1960, a concept was introduced by E. Jerome McCarthy that identified the four basic tenants of marketing as Product, Price, Place, and Promotion or, as it is more commonly known, the 4 Ps. Anyone who has ever taken a marketing class from then until now is taught the 4 P’s as the basic overview of marketing. These simple questions are what make up the basics of marketing:
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What kind of product are we going to produce?
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What is the right price for this product?
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How are we going to distribute this product?
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How are we going to promote and sell this product?
The purpose of McCarthy’s model was to further the understanding that marketing is much more than selling and advertising. In actuality, Selling and advertising only make up the promotion component of McCarthy’s model. According to McCarthy in his book Basic Marketing: A Global-Managerial Approach, “The aim of marketing is to identify customers’ needs – and to meet those needs so well that the product almost sells itself.” Easy enough, right?
The truth is that today many marketers are declaring the 4 P’s dead, or at least no longer relevant. There are many marketers who have even added more P’s to the mix, such as people, process, physical presence, or (as the word-of-mouth/social media crowd like to say) participation. The big question is can any product almost sell itself, or are there other critical factors in the new reality of the consumer movement?
The Missing Ingredient
While the 4 Ps offer a good basic framework for understanding the all encompassing nature of marketing, they are missing one key ingredient that has been made blatantly apparent by the consumer revolution – the consumer’s involvement in the process. The 4 Ps are segmented like an organizational chart, chopping up the functions of marketing in 4 bite-size chunks. But what about the fickle nature of the consumer? What if what meets their needs well one day doesn’t the next? What if your product is priced correctly, but so are the other 123 options on the market? What if the best person to design your product is the consumer? What if the consumer discovers your product is manufactured in sweat shops in India by 8 year-olds because someone walked in with a camera phone and then posted it on YouTube, their blog, and their Facebook page?
As I mentioned before, the world has changed since advertising’s glory days in E. Jerome McCarthy’s 1960s. However, many marketers have not. I have had the opportunity on many occasions to guest lecture in a university marketing class or judge a high school or college marketing class and am disappointed, to say the least, to see that our marketing education has not kept pace with the changing nature of marketing. Marketing educators still spend the majority of their time on the 4 Ps (with some attention paid to segmentation) and then dive into advertising. Some might say that this is indicative of the average age of the tenured professor, the fact that so few educators are practicing marketers within the wild west of the last 5 years, and some might even say it is a flaw in the system.
According to the existing system, educators lump this new reality of the consumer revolution into “interactive marketing”, because a significant portion of it occurs online. What they fail to see is that we need to re-address the underlying models upon which marketing is based. It goes beyond adding more “Ps”, but needs to address the new reality that we as marketers face today. We need a model that helps us understand the X factor that the consumer plays in the marketing process. We need a model that helps us connect with and engage the consumer in ways that they are most comfortable with. We need a model that helps cut through the clutter that exists in the commoditized markets in which we compete by tapping into the ability of human beings to influence each other.
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A Word About Tolerance on the Social Web
Tolerance may be one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. There are many using this term who simply manipulate it to fit their own purposes. True tolerance is something quite different than what is portrayed in the mainstream media. While this may have implications far beyond the social web, I wanted to discuss the importance of tolerance in building a brand online that is worth talking about.
Let’s start with the definition of tolerance. According to Dictionary.com, tolerance is, “interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one’s own.” This means not only being open to opposing points of view, but actively seeking them out and showing interest for opinions that are different from our own. This is where it starts to come off the track. There are many, especially those with extreme points of view on either side, who believe that others should be tolerant of their viewpoint, but they are not will to listen to the other side. Tolerance is a two way street and it involves empathy, not sympathy. Empathy is your willingness to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes – to see it from their point of view. Sympathy means that you share their same views.
What does this have to do with building an online brand? Over a year ago, I wrote a blog post about how the web has become a collection of coffee shops where groups of people sit around chatting about anything and everything. However, while what happens in the coffee shop typically stays in the coffee shop (except for the gossipers in the group), what happens online is out there for everyone to see. Your political views, your religious practices, and even your favorite sports team can all be sticking points for a potential brand ambassador. While it would be wonderful if everyone were tolerant, this is simply not the case. Therefore, you have to be proactive about seeking out opposing views and being open to the discussion. a) You might learn something and b) You meet some very interesting people that way. If there is a topic you feel particularly strong about, maybe avoiding the topic is the best way to build relationships.
Social media has brought the world together more than any other technology to date. However, just because you hand someone a microphone does not mean they have something worthwhile to say. One of my favorite quotes is from Uncle Ben on Spiderman who said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” How do we make the most of our new found amplification of our freedom of speech? Seek out new opinions. Engage in meaningful and respectful dialogue online. Build on common ground. While it is our views and beliefs that make us who we are, it our tolerance that binds us together. There is enough of ignorance and hate in the social web. Whether you are building a corporate or personal brand online, engage everyone. If used correctly, not only will social media help you build a brand like never before, but it can become the greatest source for good in human history.
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Top 25 Social Networks
Recently, Compete.com posted new statistics on the Top 25 Social Networks ranked by monthly visits. While many social networks like to tout their number of users, monthly visits is a true measurement of usage. In other words, which social networks are getting used? The numbers are below:
(Credit Compete.com)
As you can see from the numbers, Facebook has taken over the top spot from MySpace and previously little known Twitter has climbed to the third spot after the two behemoths. In fact, if you read the original blog post on Compete.com, you will see a few other graphs that show MySpace’s numbers falling while Facebook and Twitter continue meteoric rises.
What’s even more fascinating is that, according to the CNET News blog, these numbers only represent web browser traffic in the U.S. According to writer Caroline McCarthy, “That means that you won’t be pulling in any international numbers, where most of Facebook’s users are now, or data from widgets or third-party applications, which are how many avid Twitter users access the service. That means that it’s likely that Twitter’s reach is bigger than the numbers indicate.”
How does this apply to you? I have often told people in conversation that I am an early adpoter when it comes to social media, which means I am not the innovator who jumps on every new technology in its infant stages but wait for a certain mass before it has business value. I follow many innovators (such as my friend Tac Anderson or Joseph Jaffe) in order to keep my finger on the pulse of what is the latest and greatest, but look for networks or technologies that can really add value for clients. If you want to know whether a social networks would add value to your business, the 25 networks above are a safe bet.
That being said, I have always held true to the notion that focus is better than mass. If there is a small social community out there that is extremely targeted to your core audience, then you need to be an active participant. Sometimes, these social communities are housed within existing networks, such as the 25 above, and sometimes they are separate. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the web is a collection of coffee shops with people around a table chatting. You need to find the coffee shop that best fits your audience and get involved.
As an old economics professor of mine used to say, “there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics”. While one thing that blogs are great for is spewing the latest statistics to prove a point, one thing is true. With numbers even close to these, businesses can no longer argue with the value of social media in facilitating and participating in conversations.
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Be Your Own Media – Hollywood Style
We created the term “Be Your Own Media” when I was at BlueLine Marketing. We even hosted two well attended conferences entitled “Be Your Own Media. But what does it mean?
Simply put, it means that you no longer have to rely on traditional media to be the gatekeeper for your information. You no longer have to rely on “prayed” media to get your message out. With the tools available to you through social media, you can become your own media outlet. You now have the opportunity to speak directly to customers, fans, and shareholders.
Recently, I was impressed with a powerful example of Being Your Own Media. While Twitter has become a great place to stay in touch and build relationships, it has also become an excellent place to build your own media channel. You are no longer limited to paying for time on TV or radio, but you now can build your own channel of communication.
If you do some surfing around Twitter, you can find some of Hollywood, music, and professional sports’ biggest stars. For some examples, check out the Twitter pages for Diddy, Ewan McGregor, Ashton Kutcher, Maria Shriver, John Mayer, Gerard Butler, Shaquille O’Neal, and more. Why would so many superstars become active users of such a casual conversation technology?
One reason – to be their own media. As my buddy Ashton Kutcher said, “We are taking over our own tabloid media.”
When you have been hounded for so long by paparazzi and tabloid journalists, the ability to tell your own story can be incredibly liberating. Rather than being rendered helpless to fight the tabloids only in the court systems, they can now fight in the court of public opinion?
In my opinion, this marks the beginning of the end for yet another form of media – the tabloids. In addition, you now have the chance to get to know these celebrities on a much more personal level. Is it just more noise or is it a win for transparency? You be the judge.
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All Media is Social Media
I have been involved in social media for about the last 5 years, although it has gone by many names: grassroots, word of mouth, new media, Web 2.0, viral, social networking, etc. It seems like we have finally arrived at a term that everyone is comfortable with: social media. It appears that the reason why most are satisfied with social media to describe the blog/podcast/MySpace/Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn phenomenon is that what all these technologies have in common is that they are all about conversations. They encourage people to engage with each other.
I think that is a great way to describe the explosion of conversation technologies. However, I would argue that based on this definition, all media is social. All media encourages conversation, good or bad. However, social media simply captures that conversation in a nicely oraganized format online.
There are many who think of social media as a tactic only and fail to realize that it is, in fact, a cultural phenomenon. Much the same way that you feel frustration when you can’t fast forward through a commercial on a DVR because we have become accustomed to controlling our content, we feel frustrated when a brand does not have the proper tools for discussion online when we need to react to what they are doing. The conversation will take place, online or off. Wouldn’t you rather have take place in a way that you can faciliatate and participate in that conversation? This is what made shows like American Idol so popular is the ability for the audience to engage with the brand.
So while I praise the industry for arriving at a standard term for all of the online mumbo jumbo, let us remember that all media, when used correctly, should be social. So why not use social media to capture the conversation?
