MyCMO

Will local advertising bypass search?

Rick — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:32:06 +0000

Source: searchenginepeople.com/blog

Author: James Duthie

TAGS: Facebook, Google, Local Advertising, Mobile Advertising, Search Advertising

PUBLICATION: Search Engine People

DATE: September 02, 2010

Not surprisingly, Facebook Places was the catalyst for my change of heart. While Foursquare whet our appetite to the world of possibilities of mobile-driven local advertising, it lacked the scale to be a viable option for most businesses. Facebook has changed that in an instant with their new Places product, which has the potential to become the dominant local advertising platform if adoption reaches critical mass. There are a number of reasons Facebook has the potential to be a superior local advertising solution than Google:A little over a year and a half ago I published a post proclaiming Google had legitimately cracked thelocal advertising market for the first time. It came on the back of Google releasing their iPhone application, which returned localised results to users based on GPS coordinates. At the time it seemed a revelation. However, 18 months is a long time on the web. And while the application remains incredibly useful to this day, it hasn’t quite translated into the killer local advertising platform I thought it would (predominantly because Google kept it gated within the app rather than making it the default for mobile search… go figure). And while Google has remained stagnant on the matter (for once), others have marched straight past them, to the point that I’m beginning to wonder whether the vast majority of mobile advertising will bypass search completely.

User IDs

The first element working in Facebook’s favour is that every member has a distinct User ID. That ID enables Facebook to collate a history of each user’s behaviour. Conversely, only a fraction of Google’s user base take the time create a personal account. As check-in behaviour becomes more common, Facebook will build a history of personal movements for each user. This will include destinations (shopping centre, cinema, concert, restaurant etc) along with post/zip codes. This type of data will be incredibly appealing to advertisers wanting to target people within a tight geographic boundary (such as small business). I’d imagine that in time advertiser’s will be able to target Facebook users by both the type of places they frequent, as well as defined geographic regions (post codes/zip codes). Google’s lack of location history for each user will mean this style of behavioural targeting simply isn’t possible.

Brand affiliations

I must admit that I was skeptical that users would ever connect with brands in Facebook when branded pages were first launched. But boy was I wrong. They are now a key fabric of the network, with brand affiliations almost serving as a social statement/stamp. I love this brand! As with User IDs, Google simply can’t mimic this feature. The role of the search engine is to help users discover brands. End of story. At that point, the search engine’s job is done. Facebook on the other hand, facilitates an ongoing engagement between the brand and user. Google will never do that.

The natural evolution of Facebook Places would seem to be to allow brands to create micro communities for each individual outlet. Users will be able match themselves to a specific branded outlet/store. Which of course opens the door for the greatest opportunity of all… localised push notifications.

Push notifications

I strongly suspect Facebook will implement a permission based model for their location driven advertising product. Users will ‘Like’ specific stores, thereby enabling the store to deliver push notifications/offers to a user’s handset. The push notifications may or may not be triggered by check-in behaviour. In the longer-term, I doubt they will be. Indeed, Shopkick is already pioneering a permission based model that utilises iPhone sensors rather than check-ins to trigger push notifications.

Google has no such mechanism for proactive message delivery from third party brands, as it has no sense of brand affinities. Instead, it has to rely upon a user conducting a mobile search before it can serve localised ads via the iPhone. Once again this limits Google’s local advertising capabilities.

The outlook for Google

So does the emergence of Facebook Places mark the end for Google’s local advertising ambitions? Hardly. There is still an incredibly lucrative mobile search market growing with strong local advertising opportunities. Google will be a major player. But its role will be limited. Google will help people discover local brands. Which has proven to be a pretty handy business model for their standard search engine.

But I daresay Facebook is also developing its own killer business model, built upon monetisation of localised push notifications!

MySpace Throws In The Towel, Connects To Facebook

Rick — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:35:29 +0000

From Mediapost.com

by Gavin O’Malley

Waving the proverbial white flag, MySpace on Monday said its members can now synchronize posts, and other activity, with their Facebook profiles. To some, the move represents a last-ditch effort by the once reigning social network to live on by riding the coattails of Facebook’s unprecedented global success.

“It makes you wonder whether the once-dominant social network is now trying to use Facebook to help win back users and ad dollars, as opposed to competing directly against it,” said in industry watcher who wished not to be named for this story.

Officially, MySpace has been saying for months that it doesn’t compete against Facebook directly, and that it’s a community for music and music enthusiasts.

“MySpace hasn’t been in direct competition with Facebook for a long time now,” said Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer. “MySpace executives have said this several times in interviews and at conferences … Instead of being a big social network appealing to general audience, MySpace wants to focus on delivering content and experiences to young people, its core audience.”

MySpace has realized that people turn to Facebook first when they want to communicate something to their friends,” added Aho Williamson. “By integrating status updates with Facebook, MySpace is simply making it easier for people to do what they are already doing. But when it comes to offering compelling experiences to consumers, MySpace still believes that it can compete in the social media realm.”

Said a MySpace spokeswoman on Monday: “This new sync functionality is part of an ongoing effort to make it simple for people to share their updates beyond MySpace and allow fans and friends to interact with that content across the web.”

MySpace members can also share music, videos, games, links and photographs with friends on Facebook.

Earlier this year, News Corp. reported that digital media earnings were down $32 million compared to a year earlier. EMarketer, meanwhile, recently predicted that ad spending at MySpace would fall 21% this year to $385 million worldwide.

In February, MySpace came up with new product strategy under the slogan “Discover and be Discovered.” The shift came on the heels of CEO Owen Van Natta’s removal, and the subsequent promotions of Mike Jones and Jason Hirschhorn to co-presidents. (Hirschhorn subsequently said he was leaving the unit in June, leaving Jones as MySpace’s sole president.)

Last month, Facebook reached a staggering 145 million unique users, while MySpace hovered around 60.7 million.

What Lead Nurturing Content to Send When?

Rick — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:03:20 +0000

From Leadsloth.com
Written by Jeff Capstein

On Thursday I’m presenting a webinar with Treehouse Interactive, called “Lead Nurturing 101″. One of the registrants sent me the following question:

How much of this webinar will be about content, i.e. exactly what to say in each subsequent email in a series designed to move someone from prospect stage to buying stage?

The webinar will only cover this briefly, so therefore I’m giving some more details this blog post. By the way, you can still register for the webinar.

What Is Lead Nurturing Content?

Lead Nurturing content contains information that prospects need to make a purchase decision. It can come in various formats: (blog) articles, whitepapers, webinars, videos, podcasts, and so on. The content can be on the vendor’s website, it can be sent out via email, or sent out by sales people. In this post I’ll focus on content that is sent out via automated email campaigns (drip campaigns).

Mapping Content to Buying Stages

Different people need different content at different times. You can develop buyer personas and describe the content they need in the various buying stages. This process is called ‘content mapping’. Steve woods wrote a great primer on content mapping. With content mapping you can make sure that you cover all questions and objections that typically come up during the buying process. (Example Matrix below)

However, it can be hard to apply content mapping to email nurturing. On your website, prospects will select the content they find interesting themselves, but in an email you are making a choice for them. So how do know what content they need at what time?

One option would be to assume that all new leads are just starting their buying process and need 6 months to make a decision. But that’s not how it works in real life: different people have different needs and are on a different schedule. The solution is to learn more about your prospects before you decide what content to send to them.

Content for Nurturing Emails

So to send the right content by email, you need to monitor prospects’ behavior. Web visits, document downloads, form submissions and email clicks will all give you an indication of the stage prospects are in. Based on their actions, you can enter prospects in the most appropriate nurturing campaign.

For example, if prospects download a whitepaper on the trends in your industry, they may also be interested in analyst reports or customer case studies. Or if they register for a demo of your product, a logical next step my be a product trial or a free consultation.

Once prospects have been entered in a particular lead nurturing track, keep monitoring their responses. For example, if prospects who downloaded a whitepaper earlier are now registering for a demo, you may want to switch campaigns. When the drip campaign has come to an end before the prospects are ready to buy, enter them in a long-term nurturing campaign.

The Best Email Sequence

Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter. If you know the email campaign, how do you decide which content should be in it, and in which order? I can share some approaches that work well for me in my consulting practice.

To determine the pieces of content, make a list of all the questions people typically ask in this stage. If you don’t know, ask your sales people, or simply call a couple of prospects and ask them. Also try to find out typical objections. Ideally, you provide content that addresses all questions and objections that prospects have in this stage of the buying process.

In your email campaign, start with a couple of educational emails that contain helpful content. The tone-of-voice of these emails should also be helpful (as opposed to being sales-oriented). Then start mixing in some more promotional content, which could be offers or product-related content. Once the campaign is running, carefully monitor open rates and click rates so you can optimize your messages. You’ll have to iterate a couple of times: it’s hard to create the ‘perfect’ campaign from the start.

Keeping It Manageable

There are only so many campaigns that you can realistically create. How can you keep it all manageable? My first recommendation is to focus on the most promising customer segments first. It’s better to do a great job nurturing the most important 20% of your prospects than do a bad job nurturing your entire database.

Second, keep the campaigns relatively simple. A simple but consistently executed campaign will give better results than a complex campaign that is hard to manage. It’s often best to start with linear campaigns: just sending one message after another, rather than branching based on the prospect’s behavior.

Let me know your tips for creating email nurturing content!

Live Webinar: Lead Nurturing 101

Learn how to nurture your leads and bring more revenue to your company. This webinar shows what you can do today to begin or enhance your lead nurturing programs. Thursday at 1pm PDT.

Register now »

Email Newsletters: a best practice that needs to die

Rick — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:12:37 +0000

I like this blog post from lead sloth. It reminds me of the days I worked at Fairfax Media and News Corporation, sending out millions of email newsletters every month. I can say from experience that this article hits the mark. I saw open rates and click rates erode and flatten out when the business did not change anything in terms of its content – ie. the same old thing over and over again with no targeting.

As a result, I initiated a project at News Corp allowing users to customise the content in their email so that it was more relevant to them. By doing so, you not only encourage more engagement, but there is valuable targeting information you glean by looking at the content chosen by the user. The publisher would then truly be able to communicate one to one with that user not only in content but also in direct mesagging, and thus new advertising opportunities emerge.

This way both the publisher and reader wins.

Article

Email Newsletters: a Best Practice That Needs to Die

Thursday, August 5th, 2010 | Email Marketing, lead nurturing | Jep Castelein

DemandBase has just announced a webinar series called B2B Marketing Best Practices that Need to Die (I will present one of the sessions). Today, I’m working on my presentation for Monday’s lead nurturing webinar 7 steps to finding untapped revenue in your marketing database, where I’m presenting real best practices.

That made me think: in lead nurturing, are there any common “best practices” that are actually ineffective? Yes! For example, the monthly newsletter.

Today’s prospects are “crazy-busy” and “frazzled” according to Jill Konrath in her new book SNAP selling. I totally agree. If you send prospects an email, it better be relevant. If not, your email will be ignored, deleted or – worse – flagged as spam.

Monthly newsletters were a best practice in the early days of email marketing. They were designed to “stay in touch” and offer something of interest to everyone. In other words: it tried to be everything to everyone!

Newsletters break the primary rule of effective email marketing, that is: you need to segment your list to make messages relevant. A monthly newsletter is undifferentiated, and won’t please anybody. Instead, create unique messages for smaller segments of your database.

If you’d like a response to your email, you need to have a call-to-action. That works best if you have only 1 call-to-action per message. Again, this is where newsletters often go wrong: they try to promote a webinar, a whitepaper, and a new product, all in the same message. The result: terrible response rates for all of these call-to-actions.

Instead, segment your audience, figure out what they’re interested in, and send them targeted emails with only 1 topic and 1 call-to-action. And stop sending that monthly newsletter.

The SEO ZEN Master musings on SEO strategy

Rick — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:51:29 +0000

The SEO Zen Master

Max Sim

Max on LinkedIN

Mad Max Blog

As an SEO, you cannot help feeling at times like a young upstart. After all, what right have you to tell editors twice your age how to write, let alone advise the CIO on how to relaunch a site safely. There is nothng more that a young upstart needs than an arsenal of great infographics in his designer aluminium briefcase.

Release the silent gas powered hinges and bring them out in difficult moments when the sleeves have been rolled up, jackets discarded and a good ol’ marketing brawl is about to start. Even a battle hardened CIO has to be convinced by the talent and inspirational genius that was the genesis of these graphics. If someone that talented thought it important enough to create an infographic this good, maybe I should listen for 5 mins about this thing called SEO - see article with cool infographics here or below.

Do friends influence purchases in a Social Network?

Rick — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:57:17 +0000

Harvard Business School Case Study (Working Paper)

February 26, 2009

——-

Here is an interesting find on twitter (rt@agotthelt), which looks to be a working paper aimed for publishing as one of the those famous Harvard Business School Case Studies. This is an academic paper with a scientific approach and lots of statistics to back up its findings.

Note that Cyworld is the sample for this study. Cyworld is a social media/networking/virtual world environment that was set up in Korea so there may be cultural influences to purchase behaviour that does not translate to western cultures. In fact, Cyworld has recently shut down operations in the US. See these articles from Tech Crunch regarding the launch of Cyworld in 2006 and the demise. Note the date of the study is listed several months after the date of this paper as well.

I don’t mention these points to discredit the study, I only suggest that a similar study needs to be conducted in different types of social media contexts and samples to make the sample more applicable in a broader sense. Case in point, those who like Facebook may not go for MySpace and those who go for Facebook may not go for Cyworld and so on…

That said, this kind of study is fascinating and goes deeper than the mass of superficial repurposed news bytes on the web. The researcheers even apply a form of segmentation to purchasers as an added bonus. I posted the abstract of the paper below and also provide a download link for the paper.

PLEASE COMMENT IF YOU HAVE ANY OPINIONS.

Download Paper

ABSTRACT

In this study we empirically examine this issue. Specifically we address three questions – do friends influence purchases of users in an online social network; which users are more influenced by this social pressure; and can we quantify this social influence in terms of increase in sales and revenue.

[To address these questions we use data from Cyworld, an online social networking site in Korea. Cyworld users create mini-homepages to interact with their friends. These mini- homepages, which become a way of self-expression for members, are decorated with items (e.g., wallpaper, music), many of which are sold by Cyworld. Using 10 weeks of purchase and non-purchase data from 208 users, we build an individual level model of choice (buy-no buy) and quantity (how much money to spend). We estimate this model using Bayesian approach and MCMC method.

Our results show that there are three distinct groups of users with very different behavior. The low-status group (48% of users) are not well connected, show limited interaction with other members and are unaffected by social pressure. The middle-status group (40% users) is moderately connected, show reasonable non-purchase activity on the site and have a strong and positive effect due to friends’ purchases. In other words, this group exhibits “keeping up with the Joneses” behavior. On average, their revenue increases by 5% due to this social influence. The high-status group (12% users) is well connected and very active on the site, and shows a significant negative effect due to friends’ purchases. In other words, this group differentiates itself from others by lowering their purchase and strongly pursuing non-purchase related activities. This social influence leads to almost 14% drop in the revenue of this group. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our results.]

Cheers,

Rick Speciale

MyCMO – Director

6 Reasons Why People Will Buy From You—Not Your Competitors

Rick — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:59:51 +0000

Article from Marketing Profs

Veronica Maria Jarski BIO

08.24.10

6 Reasons Why People Will Buy From You—Not Your Competitors

The following is adapted from Success Secrets Of The Social Media Marketing Superstars by Mitch Meyerson and 22 other top social media marketers, including our own Ann Handley from MarketingProfs. Pick up your own copy here.

With current advancements in social media technologies, entrepreneurs can reach tens of thousands of people in new and engaging ways. Even better, they can accomplish this without spending a dime, which makes social media marketing quite possibly the ultimate low-cost, high-impact, guerrilla-marketing tool.

Though it takes just minutes to register and begin using social media websites, entrepreneurs who plan on using these powerful tools must do much more than merely participate in the social media “craze.” The overcrowded and highly competitive Internet marketplace demands that entrepreneurs approach social media seriously and arm themselves with essential knowledge of people, marketing and communication as well as a solid plan of attack. Online entrepreneurs must not only stay current with the ever-changing online technologies but also be a strong marketer and savvy business person.

Mastering online marketing is a book in itself with chapters for getting and converting traffic, direct response copy writing, website development, multimedia, affiliate programs and much more. But for now let’s keep simple it and answer two questions: 1) What is marketing ? and 2) Why should your prospects buy from you over your competitors?

What is Marketing?
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” (Peter Drucker)

Although often misunderstood, marketing is a straightforward concept, and it is relevant to every part of your company. Marketing is essentially the art and science of getting and keeping profitable and valuable customers, and the hub of every business. This requires that you fully understand the problems and concerns of your market and are able to clearly explain how you can help them solve these problems.

In addition, it is crucial to understand that marketing is an ongoing process that applies to every contact with your target market. Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of guerrilla marketing, states it this way. “Marketing is everything you do to promote your business, from the moment you conceive of it, to the point at which customers buy your product or service and begin to patronize your business on a regular basis. The key words to remember are everything and regular basis.”

The good news is that great marketers are not born, they are made. Marketing is a very teachable skill and one that you can easily learn with some time, practice, and dedication. For more than 10 years, I have trained and certified hundreds of guerrilla marketing coaches in using low-cost, high-impact marketing strategies.

6 Reasons Your Prospects Will Choose to Become Your Customers

1. Their experiences with you. Your prospects will judge your worthiness based on how you make them feel. This includes how well you communicate, your content depth, your website’s quality, etc. Your prospects will also be more likely to engage in conversations with you when you allow them to interact in ways they prefer (e.g., some people may relate to a blog post while others are more engaged by video or audio content). And always remember you are marketing to people first, so build the human bond by remembering personal details and listening carefully.

2. Your product or service benefits. There are two basic reasons why people purchase anything: to increase pleasure (e.g. glowing health, freedom, popularity) or decrease pain (e.g. stress, financial problems, poor health). Focus on your product or service’s most compelling benefits as you communicate with your target audience—then, make sure you deliver on your promises. Be specific.

3. Your trustworthiness and reputation. Protect your good name, and do everything in your power to ensure that your customers, prospects, friends, employees, and colleagues view you as a person of value. Keep in mind that your credibility, plausibility, and truthfulness will also win you far more customers than exaggerated claims and over-the-top promises.

4. The value they receive. Although most consumers are price-conscious, the vast majority do not consider price alone when making their buying decisions. Rather, they consider value: the difference between what something costs and its worth to the buyer. What does value look like in the social media world? Answer: great content, expert advice and personal connections.

5. Make transactions easy, safe, and secure. People are more likely to hand over their money when they perceive the risk as minimal. It’s best to reassure potential customers with robust guarantees, a solid privacy policy, and secure payment procedures.

6. How well you articulate their most pressing concerns. To market effectively you must get into your prospects’ heads. Listen carefully to your target audiences’ expressed opinions and feelings—particularly as they relate to your products or services—and be sure to address them directly. (Social media forums and blogs make this very easy.) Research the marketplace to discover new trends and golden opportunities that you can leverage to benefit your business.

Most importantly, especially in the social media marketing environment, remember that the superior online and offline marketing happens when entrepreneurs are willing to put themselves out there and build genuine human connections. Social media marketing is not about quantity; it’s about quality. It is not just about long lists of followers. It begins with a sincere desire to grow and nourish genuine relationships and doing whatever it takes to ensure they happen. If you do this, the money will follow.

Making it Simple – The Components of a Social CRM Program

Rick — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:10:24 +0000

Article from Focus.com

23-August-2010

Author: Paul Greenberg

Introduction

The discussion around Social CRM continues. According to a large amount of anecdotal evidence I hear, a significant number of senior executives, when queried about it, ask what it is, when the idea is brought up. Meaning, despite all the buzz and the noise, it still hasn’t reached the ears of the practitioners as much as we in the industry would love to think. Not surprising. What we call Social CRM (SCRM) is something that practitioners need to do and in many ways might be doing, but that doesn’t mean that they call it Social CRM. For an old school example, a program built around improving a service experience, optimizing the sales processes and the chances of success with opportunities, and around improving loyalty through increasingly personalized marketing efforts could be called CRM easily. But it doesn’t have to be called that. It could be seen as an individual set of efforts by a company – not the best approach by a long shot. But not illegitimate either. But nonetheless, even if its a flawed approach to it, it still can be defined as CRM. What its called is never the issue at hand. What you do to meet the needs of your market and customers is always that handy concern.

So, what I’m going to do is identify some of the practical components of Social CRM so, you can see what goes into the idea and what you should concern yourself with. Whether or not, your company calls it Social CRM or something else, or is unaware of its existence, it does exist. It is an evolutionary extension of traditional CRM that has a body of knowledge and a corpus of practice associated with it. If used well, it can benefit a company. Call it what you want. That part doesn’t matter. What does matter is that customer behavior has changed, and, thus, so must you. SCRM is the program you need to change what you do in response. Whether you call it that or not. No use wasting the knowledge that exists even for this nascent evolution of CRM.

Analysis

First and Foremost

Lets start at the beginning. Social CRM is a program that encompasses what is probably the most significant segment of your company strategy – the part that encompasses how you will relate to your customers. “But,” you say, scratching your head, “Wasn’t that CRM?”

Yes it was, but with notable differences that we’ll get into. Remember SCRM is an extension of CRM, not a replacement. What that means is that the basic core operational functionality that CRM has is still part of SCRM, only woven into a different way. The same fabric, different thread and patterns.

Again, the stress is on the word program. Thus as a program, Social CRM says, “what is it we have to do to know customers better and interact with them better? The benefit of doing that will be better customer retention, smarter customer acquisition, more committed customers who will become, optimally customer advocates, and by the opposite token, will be less mad and more forgiving when there are problems.”

To figure that out, we have to break what comprises an SCRM program.

The Caveats

A couple of quick caveats:

You can always find exceptions to the rule – meaning that few companies have a holistic SCRM strategy. Most are piecemeal.

AND expanding on that…

Most companies are not necessarily using all the individual components – perhaps some of them.

Additionally

I’m leaving the idea of strategy as implicit here. The strategy evolves throughout the development of the SCRM program stages. In other words, if you’ve incorporated the voice of the customer in the thinking of the company from the get go and then taken a look at the gaps between the existing corporate mission and vision and the one you develop and look at the objectives you’re attempting to achieve then you have the foundation for the resultant customer engagement strategy which, of course, results in the program. I’m going here with what I recently defined as my starting point:

“I find social CRM to be the program developed to execute a customer engagement strategy based on the continuous improvement of the customer’s experience with the company. In its most advanced form it is the program for a collaborative value chain at a company that involves the customers in the development and implementation of the company’s business plans to varying degrees – depending on the company. It will, done right, provides mutual value.“

(Thanks to John Ginn for pointing out this missing explanation)

What I’m providing are what you would need to craft an SCRM program that would give you the best chance at being successful with your customers and a brief description of what each means in a Social CRM context – not traditional CRM

The Components

These components are in something of an order but the reality is that a lot of them will be done simultaneously and in some cases, like the Voice of the Customer (VOC), will be part of the program’s perspective throughout and at the same time will have some deliverables associated with the program

Voice of the Customer – this is perhaps the most strategic and most tactical component of the entire program. On the one hand, there is a strong cultural component here – the willingness of the company to recognize that the customer is in command of the conversation (see culture below). On the other there are concrete things that need to be done. First, a customer advisory board that would be in place from the beginning – available to provide you with valuable inputs on how to craft this SCRM program. On the other hand, while you are doing what you see below (see all other components) you need to do what many call Customer Experience Mapping – which looks granularly at the customer’s interactions, expected results, actual results and the weight the customer puts on the result in all channels. So this is strategic and tactical.

Mission and Vision – “But,” you say, “our company HAS a mission and a vision statement”. So what. You need to do a facilitated set of sessions to decide what your VOC-driven vision and mission is and then plot it against the existing one and see where the gaps are in your corporate vision vs. the one you came up with and same for the mission.

Objectives – This is no different than any other strategy you might have. What do you want out of this SCRM initiative. However, what you want might be different. For example, if you are being traditional – aside from revenue benefits, or lift or better CSAT scores, you might want to look at what it takes to create customer advocates. Meaning you set an optimal objective that says my objective is customer evangelists. While you certainly won’t get 100% results, if you use an SCRM strategy you will get more than if you didn’t plan for them.

Business Requirements - This is again not much different than it always has been. What resources do we need to accomplish the task. But the resource set changes somewhat because you will be dealing with non-traditional channels and probably with channels that are outside your control – for example, Twitter – which means the personnel you bring to bear, the hardware and software that you might need, etc. could be quite different than a more traditional company-focused approach. Simple example – what do you need to turn a Twitter complaint into a trouble ticket for customer service?

Processes Assessments – Here there will be fairly significant different because of the processes needed to be more “social.” Processes and business rules that for example represent protocols that the company will have to use to deal with customer complaints on the social web. But it also includes more traditional processes, such as the classic sales processes that you use from lead to cash.

Business Case including costs/TCO – this is no different than its ever been except that you’re taking into account for example, software costs that in a previous era you might not have such as social media analytics or monitoring tools. Or the labor cost of a community manager. But that’s more a product of the change in business culture and customer interaction and expectations than it is a change in making the business case.

Risk Assessment – same. Risks are different though. What is the risk of NOT responding in 24 hours to a customer complaint. Or the risk of not allowing comments on a blog – or the risk of allowing comments on a blog.

Metrics/Benchmarks/ROI – This is perhaps the most fuzzy. Because right now, how to measure the value of successful social customer interactions is still a bit unclear. What kinds of benchmarks should you adhere to? What kinds of KPIs should you set for your employees? What kinds of metrics measure customer value that you can use to show why you’ve been successful. There are hints here and there on what to do – the beginnings of efforts that are starting to define how to measure success with a social customer. For example, Customer Referral Value as an extension of Customer Lifetime Value where the customer’s indirect impact on revenue is measured based on their trusted relationships with other potential and actual customers of your business – and their willingness to evangelize you. Also First Contact Resolution rather than First Call Resolution – which basically is allowing for the fact that the customer has preferred channels, not necessarily the phone – though not ruling it out either – to be in touch with you – and their customer service issues might be resolved without it ever reaching the phone. This needs a long and careful look by your company when formulating an SCRM program and strategy.

Culture – This is the most difficult of all parts. Historically, it always has been. If there is anything underfunded in traditional CRM strategies it is the change management programs necessarily to alter the company’s culture to allow acceptance of this. This is magnified a hundred fold by SCRM, not because of SCRM, but because it involves a fundamental transformation of the company. It doesn’t just say, become customer-centric. It says “recognize that the customer is in command of the conversations about your company to the point that they can have an impact on your company that you have nothing to say about when it occurs and they communicate in channels that you have no control over.” So, you are effectively (not literally) ceding control to the customer – which actually, in real life terms, is recognizing that the customer has far more power of his/her buying decisions and even more over the performance of your company than he/she ever did before. Which means that you are forced to respond to that change. The customer has changed, the culture of the company needs to change to recognize that so that it can, with minimal internal damage, change what it does.

Communications – Another unappreciated factor when it comes to the components of a SCRM program. How you communicate with your employees and your customers in the course of crafting the program actually matters. Things to consider are the channels that you are going to communicate with them on – for example, are you going to ask for customer input? If so, how? Survey? Facebook query? LinkedIn Q&A? Meetings and phone calls? Focus groups? How are you going to keep the employees informed as to the status of the projects/programs as you evolve them? How much do you want them involved? If you do – wiki? Or more passively – email status reports. Or an Intranet site? Or a party to more cheerily explain what you’re doing? In other words, communications – rather than in the past when they tended to be unidirectional, now need to be more multi or bi-directional. The communications channels you need to use will matter in the success of the creation of the creation of the SCRM program.

Vendor Selection Strategy – While the point in the process you start vendor selection hasn’t changed – later rather than sooner, nor the fundamentals of vendor selection haven’t changed – meaning the vendor needs to meet your needs; not you squeezing in your plans to meet their technologies, what you need to “select” when it comes to SCRM has most certainly changed and in a more bewildering way than ever. First, you have to consider not just your operational requirements but what kind of customer inputs (feedback capabilities) and outputs (engagement and monitoring on external channels) you need; what channels you are going to use; how you are going to capture not only the traditional customer information such as transactional data; but the social data meaning profile information; interaction data and influence knowledge, etc. Then you have to consider what you are going to do with that data – e.g. deeper customer insight; using inputs for expanding service knowledgebase, etc. Then you have to decide what architectures work for you – SOA, REST, etc. Then whether best of breed or whole suite (good luck on finding one) etc. But, all in all when it comes to vendor selection in SCRM, you have to do decide what vendor provides you with the tools that help you do your job and meet your objectives. Key phrase: do your job. Not just provide you with features, do your job. Get it. Do your job. ‘Nuf said.

Model Project (Pilots) - Of course, to make it happen, the iterative approaches that worked for CRM still work for SCRM. That means that you should look at what the pressing business problems you have are – not always negative either and build pilot programs that can handle the solution to the particular problem. You can expand your portfolio later when it comes to adding other SCRM capabilities. Do something that provides you with a way to prove the case – and some measurable result that gives you success, helps buy in and provides a place to start.

Conclusion

Okay. That’s the basics of the basics when it comes to formulating a Social CRM program. Whether or not you call it Social CRM is hardly the most important thing (though it wouldn’t hurt), you have to do these things to develop the kinds of responsive programs that support your relationships with the 21st century customers who are one way or the other – socially or not – dealing with your company – in the changed reality that you face. If you don’t call it SCRM, that’s fine. Just make sure you have these pieces in place to accomplish what you need – and then make sure that you understand the one key thing you truly have to for success – your customer is more empowered with more choices than ever and can go somewhere else to get whatever it is you provide. Plus they can talk about you where they want to in places you can’t control – and affect you without your permission. But if you do the above things – calling it whatever you want – with the perspectives discussed in each part – you’re likely to have a better chance of success than you would if you don’t. A considerably better chance. Which is all you can expect, isn’t it?

Disclosures and References

Sources: CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers by Paul Greenberg (McGraw-Hill, 2009)

Making the ROI case for social media

Rick — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:16:37 +0000

From B2B Magazine

Paul Gillin

Story posted: August 16, 2010 – 6:01 am EDT

Executives eager to avoid getting involved in the whole social media thing frequently cite lack of clear return on investment as a shortcoming. It’s time to put that misperception to bed.
The Internet is the most measurable medium ever invented, and anything that can be measured can be used to calculate ROI. The first thing you need to know is the value of a customer. If you don’t know that, get your CFO to figure it out. It takes about two hours. Then you need solid customer relationship management practices and decent Web analytics. Here’s how it works.

Let’s say a typical customer spends $10,000 with you annually and stays for five years. If your profit margin is 10%, then the average new customer is worth $5,000. Once we know that, then we can plug in conversion rates to figure out the value of a website visitor, a Twitter follower, a webcast registrant or anyone else.

Let’s say Twitter brings an average of 1,000 monthly visitors to your website and that you typically convert 50 of them to customers. That’s $250,000 in monthly Twitter value. If it took 50 tweets to get 1,000 visitors, then each tweet was worth $5,000.

Or let’s say a search optimization program brings an additional 1,000 visitors per month and that searchers convert at a 0.1% rate. That means the program is delivering $50,000 a month in value. If you spent less than that, you have positive ROI.

It isn’t that simple, of course. You also need to understand the cost of getting those additional visitors. But if you have a clear picture of staff and time costs, that’s not rocket science. For example, if the fully loaded cost of a full-time social media expert is $100,000, and if you can trace 20 new customers to her efforts, then she’s paid for herself.

Why aren’t more businesses using these simple metrics? For one thing, most of them don’t know the value of a customer. Fix that.

The bigger problem is that few companies use Web analytics or understand the analytics they use. They look at meaningless statistics like page views and ignore the capabilities of today’s sophisticated tools to identify what visitors do once they reach a website.

Custom URLs let you easily identify where people came from; analytics let you profile their behavior. When you know the percentage of respondents to a Facebook promotion who drop a lead and the percentage of leads that convert to customers, you can easily figure the ROI of Facebook.

Does this take time and effort? Sure. Is there anything more important to your business than understanding the behavior of your customers? I can’t think of anything.

Can Closed-Door Exclusive Social Networks Make Money?

Rick — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:14:15 +0000

Source clickZ.com and rt@Lizstrauss

Author: Sean Carton | August 16, 2010 | 7 comments

So far, most of us have been thinking about social media as a marketing tool. But have you thought about it as a product?

“A product?” you might be asking, “Do you mean something like a new Web service or app?”

Astute question, but no: I’m not talking about creating the next Facebook or Twitter. I’m not talking about giving everything away. I’m talking about actually making money from what you’re probably giving away for free right now.

Think about it: even if you sell widgets, there’s probably value you can add for your customers by supplying information about how to better use those widgets. If you’re a service business, information itself is your business. And if you’re your own personal brand – I’m talking to you celebrities or digerati out there – then information about you is your business.

But yet we give it away. Heck, many consumer packaged goods companies don’t just give it away…they actually pay their customers (through coupons, promotions, etc.) for the privilege of accessing information. Service businesses – ad agencies, consultancies, etc. – regularly give away valuable information (that many of their customers pay for) through tweets, blog entries, and Facebook updates. Celebrities – see Kim Kardashian or Justin Bieber – also give away information about themselves by tweeting, posting photos, etc. Sure, this information does have a purpose: advertising and building their fan base. There’s also the side benefit of advertising sold on sites like Twitpic that become the recipients of huge amounts of traffic when folks like Lady Gaga or the Jonas Brothers post some new “exclusive” video/picture/bon mot. According to thisarticle, the Jonas Brothers can generate 2 million views when they post something new on Ustream, and Lady Gaga has attracted 390,000 views of a photo she tweeted about. All those eyeballs mean more advertising dollars to the sites the fans visit. In fact, the same article mentions that Ms. Kardashian has been paid as much as $10,000 per tweet because of her traffic-generating capabilities.

Overall, most of us have looked at social media as a marketing tool, a way of driving traffic, building awareness, or building brand loyalty. But what if we looked at it as a way of driving revenue through access?

Technology guru George Gilder has been quoted as saying that “every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity.” Value is created or destroyed because there’s not enough of something that people want or because there’s too much of it. Right now the social media economy is one of extreme abundance. There’s certainly no lack of tweets, status updates, or blog postings last time I checked. In fact we’re awash in abundance and spend enormous amounts of time trying to wade through it or we pay other people to edit the datastream for us. Some of the most popular blogs (Boing Boing and The Huffington Post come to mind) exist specifically for this reason: they filter the noise so we don’t have to.

But scarcity itself can create value if the scarce commodity is something that people want. Look at Google’s long history of “closed invitation-only” betas: people go ga-ga over these things, trading invitations like currency. It’s like the old “velvet rope in front of the club door” trick: if you can’t have something you want, it just makes you want it more.

That being the case, what if we began to monetize social media access not by seeking more followers or subscribers or “friends” but by restricting access? What if Justin Bieber charged a subscription fee for his tweets? What if you could only get “exclusive” Lady Gaga pictures when you paid for the privilege? What if you could only become a fan of a brand (with access to insider information, special deals, etc.) if you were either invited through some exclusive process or had to pay to get in?

It’s not an idea without precedent. Private clubs have existed ever since Zog decided that he only wanted Ugga and Snork to hang out in his cave at the exclusion of the rest of the smelly group of cave people. They have existed because they have benefits: they build trust among the participants, allow for conversations that couldn’t be had in public, and they give people a place to hang without having to deal with the great unwashed (or maybe in the cave-people’s case, washed) masses.

There have been a number of “exclusive, invitation-only” social networkingexperiments to date, and they’ve been met with varying success. They usually cater to a highly-exclusive (and wealthy) clientele and trade on their snootiness to build cache. There are also exclusive groups for leaders in industry, often tied together with real-world networking events. Not a totally new concept.

But for marketers outside of the Learjet set, taking a look at exclusivity (either through invitation or pay-to-play/read/tweet models) might be an interesting way to generate additional revenue and build a more fiercely-rabid base of brand loyalists. Look at the TED Conference: there are plenty of us who’d love an invitation not just because it’d mean we “arrived” but because we also would gain access to some really smart people. In this case, the network itself has become the product.

For marketers who now blog and tweet as a way of promoting yourself, keep it up. It’s a proven way to build your brand and generate awareness. But why not make another level of information – the extra good stuff – a benefit of being a client? And better yet, if you have a set of clients who might want to talk to each other, why not make access to that network part of the benefit, too? Why give it away?

Reversing the open social networking paradigm might, in certain cases, allow you to extend value far beyond the limited contact that you might otherwise have with your clients or customers. We all go to conferences so that we can hear smart ideas and network with others like ourselves. We also go to have the chance to go up to the podium after the speech and talk one-on-one with the expert we just listened to. Afterwards we just go home.

Why? Why not make ongoing network part of the product? Wouldn’t you pay extra to go to a conference where one of the benefits was a year of continued access to a private network of your colleagues where you could discuss issues and share ideas in a safe place along with ongoing participation from the experts who gave the talks that you attended? I bet you would.

As for consumer products, much of the same model applies. In fact, toy company Ganz has made a pretty penny with its Webkinz line of stuffed animals that also provide access to a kiddy social network and game world. In fact, based on the kids that I’ve seen who are into Webkinz, it’s the information – the network – that’s the real draw. The stuffed animal is just a nice side benefit.

Would this work for every business? Maybe not, though how much would you pay (and how loyal would you be) if you could get exclusive online tech support from your own personal plumber or could get breaking news from your favorite sports teams before it hit the rest of the Web? Are there obstacles to this idea? Yes: the most important of which is that the big social media services aren’t set up to allow for this pay-to-play model right now. I’d imagine, however, that there are some people out there who could probably build a work-around.

Social media: we all know that it’s a great marketing tool. Maybe it’s now time to start thinking about how to turn it into a revenue generating tool by making it less accessible to your audiences, not more.

Cheers,
RS