Customer World

From product conversation to passion conversation

It's always interesting to see how marketers struggle to gain the attention of customers. Even after spending big bucks on marketing/promotions, some products catch the attention and some don't . This led me to think what makes customers lap-up certain product concepts even if they don't buy it the first time but how does one create a buzz that goes around it which enables others to make their decision faster. Here's an interesting perspective on the same topic:

If you want people to talk about your product or service, you need to ratchet up one of these three traits. Consider a 360-year-old Finnish company named Fiskars, which makes orange-handled scissors. If ever there was a viral-marketing challenge, it's scissors -- a product with all the sizzle of a RAM upgrade. Brains on Fire, a brand-identity firm based in South Carolina, helped Fiskars find the emotion. "We knew we had to move from a product conversation to a passion conversation," said Spike Jones, the firm's "firestarter." Jones and his colleagues realized there was one community that was indeed passionate about scissors: arts and crafters. They found four arts-and-crafts zealots and christened them "Fiskateers." Then Brains on Fire asked the Fiskateers to select additional compadres who would support other people in their crafting hobby. (Notice the added public-service element.) Since the project launched, there has been a 600% increase in online mentions of the Fiskars brand. (I had covered this in my previous blog post)

Start thinking about emotion, public service, and triggers.

Step # 1: People are emotional. If you can get them to either agree/disagree, love/hate, join/oppose your messages they tend to get involved. Your marketing efforts need to appeal to them to do that. Also, you need a method to know your believers and disbelievers by name and contact - a database. Then, build a one-to-one dialog with them.

Step # 2: People want to contribute Remember, people always want to give back something to the community. When you let them know you are the catalyst for the same, they tend to align with your products or brands. Include that in your marketing efforts, they tend to feel good and talk about their contribution to others and hence about your product or brand.

Step # 3 People want the right triggers  Not always, everybody wants to do the talking. But they definitely do so when there is a trigger. For example, green and energy efficiency, acts as triggers to get people to talk to each other about their contribution to this environment by buying products that are energy efficient. Or getting somebody to use or try your product before others( a preview) or a test your product before the launch encourages chatter as a trigger.

If you don't treat customers as " transactional" elements of your marketing efforts but as "emotional" absorbers of your messages, it can work a long way in gaining a passionate dialog about your products/brands leading to higher conversion and market share.

Typealyzer analysis of my blog - It's quite cool - Is this the future of customer profiling?

Imagine a time when you were busy taking the help of somebody to do mind reading, handwriting analysis etc. which would tell you more about the kind of person you are or the person who you are going to meet, - to know what your or their strengths and weaknesses! Or doing a detailed profiling research to know more about your customers' demographics and psychographics.

Here, it's happening to the online world too but with a difference. With typeanalyzer,  you can know the person a lot better( - What personality is your blog?)! Here's an analysis of my blog!

INTJ - The Scientists

The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it - often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be physically hesitant to try new things.

The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communicating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use concrete examples. Since they are extremely good at concentrating they often have no trouble working alone.

Looks like this is will be one of the many ways by which customers on the web will be profiled!  Hence, this could become one of the ways to target or pull them to products or services basis their interests and personality!

 
 

Learning when not use mobile for marketing!

According 1-to-1 media, the mobile industry has a lot of learning to do from email marketing industry - esp. how not use it! Take a look:

Taking into account email's bad customer experiences with spam and email address sales, the mobile marketing industry developed its channel strategy around the concept that consumers control the relationship.

"When we hear that beep, everybody looks right away," says Steve Leonard, general manager at mobile firm Motricity, speaking about responsiveness to text messages.Consumers are now more willing to respond to offers via SMS because they know that no one will sell their mobile number and they can easily get out if the relationship doesn't meet their expectations.....consumer-controlled relationship will only increase as technology advances to allow mobile banking, purchases, and other applications. And while high-tech devices like the iPhone and BlackBerry are important to drive mobile's evolution....

The key to mobile marketing's future success lies in its metrics capabilities.... Calls-to-action like mobile coupon redemption or in-venue sweepstakes allow companies to track consumer actions to specific marketing initiatives.....

My View:  In India especially, this medium already has the effect of email marketeers' misuse. The amount of junk SMSs we receive is quite high. Also, many companies have started using it for mobile alerts, mobile marketing initiatives etc. Sometimes, it is quite a pain or does not get the attention of customers as it would earlier. It needs to be used judiciously and it must move away from regular transactional messages to relationship messages too.

Ideas are welcome. Any ideas to kick-start this thinking?