Customer World

The laws of physics behind marketing methods

I read an interesting post about how the rules of mass marketing, direct marketing & social media are so different in approach, content, analysis and results. Therefore, for marketers, the challenge of applying & measuring each of them is conflicting, different & downright confusing. The truth though is that data(at an individual customer level) is becoming the DNA for marketing and incremental byte-sized data from each of them come at different points of time - controlled to near-real to real.The key, therefore, is knowing how to use it, apply it basis the method of marketing marketers are executing or seeking solutions for, not making the mistake of transposing one type of marketing hypothesis to the other etc. are key factors of being a successful marketer tomorrow.

Take a look:

Mass advertising is like Classical Physics; large-scale, mostly intuitive and somewhat predictable.

Direct Marketing is like Atomic Physics; small/medium-scale, mostly logical, but the segmentation aspects start to show some bumps and troughs on what appeared to be smooth and simple.

Social Media is more like Quantum Physics; small-scale, counter-intuitive and usually unpredictable.

• Traditional marketers deal with everyones opinions in big bins like sales figures, national focus groups, opinion polls, etc. These roll-ups average out the inconsistencies of individuals and blur together to form tendencies, trends and preferences. The actions taken in mass marketing can expect a relatively consistent result (i.e. send out a coupon and you can expect a certain level of redemption and sales revenue to come from it and the larger the audience, the more likely it is to average out at a predictable result). This is the world that marketers are familiar with and all-in-all it makes sense if you know the system.

• Social Media on the other hand acts on the niche and individual level where things are a lot less certain. The complex nature of blog posts is hard to parse out into definitive numbers and trends.The lack of large numbers makes the reaction and result of social media efforts difficult to determine and measure. It is much more difficult to roll up all of these disparate opinions into a meaningful decision than to look at an opinion pie-chart.So in essence, social media tools have given marketers a microscope powerful enough to see what is going on at smaller scales.

...many marketers in the classical camp are not very happy with what they see, because it doesn’t confirm what they thought they knew. Decisions which appear obvious when looking at large sample sizes becomes more nuanced and contradictory when you see everyone as an individual.

How do measure Customer Engagement?

MarketingNPV provides an in-depth point of view on measuring engagement. This is a complex and evolving subject in marketing. The key however is to start small, keep defining & redefining it, see the results and keep improving it all the time. I think customer engagement must include all touchpoints beyond just net, blogs. It should include store visits, branch visits, call centre, product usage, cross-product holding, depth of features & benefits used by the customer etc.

Take a look at how they see it:

Two Types of Engagement

There are two generally accepted engagement “types”: emotional engagement and behavioral engagement. The former is more popular; the latter is more important.

Behavioral Engagement

It’s important to note that behavioral engagement is not limited to a purchase of a product or service; it encompasses all the interactions that a prospect or customer has in relation to a brand. There are any number of pre- or post-sale activities that can be (directly or indirectly) predictive of a future purchase or re-purchase; they include visiting a Web site, downloading a whitepaper, calling customer service, recommending a product, or even commenting on a blog.

There’s plenty of data available to track how customers or prospects are engaging with a company; the key is to synthesize it into a clear model for demonstrating either short- or long-term economic benefit.

To probe more deeply into these drivers, your next step will be to identify places on the map where you have good data and where you don’t. Look beyond the traditional customer survey information, brand-tracking studies, and the CRM system. What Web analytics are you capturing? Do you have access to point-of-sale data or call-center transcripts?

The key to measuring engagement is:

a. Develop a vision
b. Create a methodical testing process
c. Look for predictive validity of upstream behaviours
d. Leverage your engagement drivers

Forrester's ladder of participation and impact on marketing

I was reflecting over the weekend about Forrester's Social Technographics Ladder of Participation. While it was focussed on emerging social technologies, I felt there were some trends, learnings and practices that can be applied from here to refresh marketing thinking, practices, evolving needs to embrace technologies that can make some changes happen and thereby make marketing more relevant to enterprises and CEOs. Let's take a look at this Ladder of Participation first:

I see the marketing eco-system too, taking a very similar shape(with either customers or prospects) in the years to come. The need to 'engage' and run marketing campaigns across a similar ladder is bound to become increasingly important. Marketing will need to 'bucket' its segments of customers or prospects across the spectrum of Inactives to Creators. The 'old world marketing' practice would have stopped with collecters - who I would define as repeat purchasers. Normally, marketing practices would have stopped there.

But, in the 'new world of marketing', customers will be more involved, participative and conversational. Thereby, customers will leave a 'trail of information' behind, in enterprises. For an enterprise, the creators will be the most loyal and demanding. They need to be recognized, valued and encouraged to converse. The ones who do it, will become identifiable and the most important. Also, products/brands will have to become 'information platforms' in such a world. This will also lead to customized design of products and services for them.

The critics are the ones who will have to be 'listened' to. With emerging channels or touch points, the enterprises must open a channel of communication to hear and rectify their problems. They are the ones who can potentially move-up the ladder of participation.

The collectors need to be 'prodded' to talk rather just buy again and again, get them to share their experience and frustrations with the product. And the joiners will have to be moved to become collecters.

This kind of marketing will combine a lot of information, analytical insights, real-time marketing automation to talk to customers in different behavioural states and stages in the ladder. And when enterprises talk of millions and millions of such identified customers or prospects, the need for marketing to deliver scalable, real-time, right-time marketing will only become sacrosanct. The ones who will practice it, will have the ear of CEOs/CFOs and the rest will be left behind.

 

    

Understanding the power of customer lifecycle

David Baker provides some interesting insights on customer lifecycle. I quite like the idea of identifying "switch points" when a customer is likely to switch to another product/brand or is ready to move to a product in the higher tier. The key question to me though is the ability of companies to identify such "customer states" or "behaviour states". Marketing needs to quickly start learning that art of using customer information, drill down and observe these changes in customer patterns and take appropriate action.

He writes:

If you are like most people, you have stages of life and all things around you; people and environments change dramatically over time. We have an early life stage where we learn the primary elements of surviving in this mixed world, the basics, as we could call it. This is where we form our basic judgments, values and shape who we are and the paths we'll lead. This is where we learn to develop our community of generations, or simply break out and build our own communities. We have many milestones that we go through: high school graduation, college for some, young adult life in the working force, family development and planting roots into a community. We then drift into the middle stages of our life, where many foster these communities and evolve the next stage of life till we get to the celebrated later stages of our life and bask in our wealth and watch our families grow up.

A customer lifecycle is just that. It is the foundation of consumer involvement with your brand over time. A customer lifecycle can shift over time, as consumers come in and out of different lifestages.

The key to marketing exactness in developing a lifecycle program is to identify "switch points" when a customer is likely to shift away from your brand, consider new alternatives and potentially develop some brand affinity with your competitor. Many in the marketing space trigger off of key income milestones. We graduate from college, we get married and have dual incomes, we start a family, we invest in our first home, we buy our first automobile, we consider life insurance as a means of protecting our family, we look more closely at investment options. All are viable triggers.

Don't purge that consumer from your database or program if they don't respond; don't purge them if they don't buy. Look deeper and see if a lifestage is influencing their involvement with your brand. That's the essence of marketing!

Eight predictions for marketing in 2008

We are coming to the end of 2007 and dawn of another new year. It's time for predictions again, I presume! Chief Marketer has some predictions:

1. There will be an ongoing emphasis on “engagement” measures. This is getting harder and harder to measure using models that had already lost their efficacy in 1985, and when you combine that with the power of today’s “bionic” consumers, born hot-wired into the Internet with an iPod in one hand and a TiVo controller in the other, engaging them will be the only way of guaranteeing loyalty and profitability.
2. More “brands” will become “Category Placeholders.” As brands become more and more enamored with and enmeshed in “new” media like social networking and messages beamed into consumers’ living rooms from outer space, marketers need to ensure that their brands actually stand for something in the mind of the consumer.
3. Companies will have to move from saying they’re ”Green” to actually being “Emerald City Green.” Playing in the environmental arena won’t be an option in 2008 and brands and holding companies will have to find ways of positioning their offerings in ways that meaningfully support a sustainable future.
4. Media planning will become more touch point focused and personalized.
   Planners will still classify touch points as “above-the-line,” “below-the-line,” and “new,” but planning will be based on three critical considerations: a) which touch point best reinforces brand values, b) where the brand + media equation yields real engagement, and c) where the plan is seamless, believable, personalized, and authentic.
5. Behavior will (finally) trump attitude.More marketers will come to realize that “to know you is not necessarily to buy you” (or, for that matter, even like you). Loyalty and engagement metrics – particularly those configured to provide brand-to-media engagement measures—will be used to identify behavioral “hot buttons” that marketers can add to their toolboxes and their search efforts.
6. Consumer expectations will once more grow.Brands are only barely keeping up now. Expectations remained stable for a short time, but only while consumers were catching their breadths and adopting –then devouring – the newest of the new technologies and innovations.
7. Personal health management will impact brand engagement and loyalty.U.S. obesity is at an all-time high, with Americans among the fattest people on earth. This increase is primarily the result of consuming more calories, that behavior the direct result of technological innovations making it possible for food to be mass/fast prepared far from the point of consumption, and coconsumed with lower costs of preparation (even if you factor in marketing costs).
8. Innovation and loyalty will matter more. What is clear is that the ever-expanding universe of brands will require an informed action plan – one that makes sense to the people on the brand and marketing side of the equation, but one that also accurately identifies and capitalizes upon what people on the consumer side really feel, really want, and really believe. nsumed with lower costs of preparation (even if you factor in marketing costs).

Capital One's Card Lab - Get your customized credit card

Capital One recently announced the launch of Card Lab.  Ron Shevlin writes about this:

Capital One launched Card Lab, which it claims is the first “do-it-yourself” credit card offer. It’s an interactive tool that lets prospective card applicants choose among a number of options to build their own card package. Not surprisingly, you can’t get a 25% annual bonus and 2 points per $1 charged and 1.25% back on purchases and….you get the picture (otherwise see below).

My take: Card Lab is a winner because it:

1) Builds up versus narrows down. Card Lab’s approach puts prospects in charge, and presents the options in such a way that they can easily see the tradeoffs they make when selecting certain options.

2) Engages with interactivity.Card Lab, on the other hand, is a great demonstration of the interactivity the channel is capable of delivering. Serious prospects can play what-if to their hearts’ content in order to understand the product features and tradeoffs available to them.

3) Yields actionable data.The web analytics folks at Cap One are going to have a field day with Card Lab. Analyzing the usage, trends, clickstream, etc. should help Cap One marketers get a really good understanding of who’s looking for cards online, what their preferences are, which features are most popular, and so on.

I agree with Ron completely. It's a great idea and extremely customer-focussed.But, CardLab sounds a little intimidating to me.Another key issue though is actually the process of accepting or rejecting applicants - that is, how customer-level data is connected real-time for approving and disapproving an application as credit cards are fraught with credit-risks. Am sure Capital One has the process taped-up for this.But, this is a key factor for positive customer experience and product adoption. 

Here's one more product that fits-in with all the advantages what Ron is talking about:

Closer home in India, my example is HDFC Bank's NetSafe card for customization,customer-centricity and the method to manage the process well. It's a lovely little product. In fact, it works on the fear of Net Security which is a primary concern for credit card customers using their cards online.

NetSafe, is a unique online payment solution that offers complete security while shopping on the Internet. With NetSafe, customers can shop online through a virtual credit card, without revealing their actual HDFC Bank Credit Card number. What's more,they can use the HDFC Bank Debit Card(Check Card) also for online purchases. Customers here choose their account limit for this specific card - Value of credit limit, date of expiry of the card etc.! Customer can create as many online credit cards as possible(subject to the overall accepted credit limit).

Does P&G need another community portal or a platform?

Procter & Gamble has launched a portal for pet lovers - petside.com. According to NY Times:

...Web portal that looks something like a Yahoo or AOL for pet owners, with a bit of Facebook and MySpace thrown in.The site, Petside.com, offers a full menu of information about dogs and cats, from the serious (how to diagnose your pet’s illnesses) to the silly (funny animal videos). There are links to shopping sites (like Petco.com) and articles about topics like what to do if visitors are allergic to your pet (hint: vacuum). Visitors are encouraged to set up social networking profiles in order to meet other pet owners.

While it's a great idea, it raises some questions in my mind. Frankly, I don't have all the answers but it can set a context for a discussion, I think:

1. Can such portals aggregate "interested" customers and create sustained interest ?  Am not sure. There is a lot of content on the web for pet owners. I think marketers need to add context around the content rather than just content. I personally don't think there is a need for one more portal and consumers are not waiting for one, I presume.
2. Is it still old world thinking? The TV era was about creating content and it helped aggregate audience. During the later years,there was proliferation of channels but it was still limited. The internet has opened-up a flurry of 'content creators' with micro audiences. So, it may just  be impossible to lead with content alone. The clutter in  new media is  lot more higher than traditional media. If TV soaps had a 13 or a 26 week interest, such content might have 13 days or 26 days interest?!! How do marketers keep the momentum going?
3. How can P&G create a platform? Thinking laterally, Google creates APIs that can be plugged-in with other sites and hence it is a sort of glue where ever users go on the web. It's in the context of the user rather than the marketer. So, do marketers like P&G have to create CPIs, where  C stands for customers. If I was a pet owner, P&G builds a set of CPIs that can help pet owners get content the way they want.It pulls content from different creators. It's an equivalent of a  "TV remote" in the offline world. If I don't like the content, I switch it off and move to another. P&G's site needs have a lot such CPIs which consumers can use. It may be mobile reminders, email alerts, or a plug-in into my igoogle  which is an independent channel for pet owners, beauty, grooming etc. P&G has to create an open marketing platform for content developers to use its CPIs.

What do you think? To me this makes a lot of sense and seems far more relevant than creating one portal after another.

          

Experience is marketing

In s+b magazine, James Gilmore and Joseph Pine II write that:

Companies in consumer and business markets now pay more and more to reach fewer and fewer households and executive decision makers.

What companies need, therefore, is a new approach to demand creation that actually enables — make that forces — a company to be what it says it is. To borrow the phrase architect Jon Jerde made famous, that discipline is placemaking. Places are what provide the primary means for companies to demonstrate exactly what they are for both current and potential customers. Companies that embrace placemaking understand a fundamental dictum for contending with authenticity: The experience is the marketing. In other words, the best way to generate demand for any offering — whether a commodity, good, service, other experience, or even a transformation — is for potential (and current) customers to experience that offering in a place so engaging that they can’t help but pay attention, and then pay up as a result by buying that offering. Stop saying what your offerings are through advertising, and start creating places — permanent or temporary, physical or virtual, fee-based or free — where people can experience what those offerings, as well as your enterprise, actually are.

Customer Relationships are Conversations

There is a lovely little post by Valeria Maltoni where she tracks a post in Tom Peters blog on " What is customer relationship? " She writes:

The working definition they’ve come up with is:

A relationship is an ongoing conversation with a customer, in which the customer never thinks of you without thinking of the two of you.

Customer relationships are conversation only and if there is an unwavering commitment on the part of the company to make it so. Let’s not forget that in exchange for providing a product or service, the company gets compensation.

So far, the best reasoning I read about the whole discussion comes from Paul H in the UK:

customer relationship should be what the customer wants it to be. We want that to be a human relationship.

While it matters how we think about customer relationships and approach the opportunities we have to begin or continue these conversations with a mindset and attitude of service...

Open Social - The platform for customer aggregation

I have often wondered( when I receive mails from different folks inviting me to be a member of several social networking sites they were members of)oops, hear comes one more social network membership!  I was always left overwhelmed. Where is the time for me to become a member of one more social network and interact. Being an active user of linked-in, I have always felt, what if I had a way to get everyone of my contacts across all social networks into linked-in, be it professional and personal.

I think Open Social from Google just does that. Open Social provides a platform for aggregation of Social networks into the social network site of your choice. It's Google's solution of a connector like app for social networks. There are some lovely business application demos from Linked-in & salesforce.com there. I am sure there will a lot more applications, more than just business applications, which will help me get connected to my contacts and connections in Linked-in, wherever they are in any social network.

At the start of the year, I had read 2007 will be the year of Widgets and it's coming alive with this innovation from Google. I am sure there will be a lot more application development around this code but this is according to me is just the beginning. I believe this is going to have some profund impact on how data, information & interests about consumers will get shared and also how businesses will get a lot more collaborative in the future.

Take a look at the launch video:

Engagement and experience are your new 30-second spots

Don Shultz had done a review of the book "Profitable Marketing Communications: A Guide to Marketing Return on Investment," - A topic that's gaining attention among CEOs today. He picks-up 8 tips - 8 investor tips to marketing communications- from the book:

The eight tips are:

• Concentrate on outcomes, not outputs
• Forget consumers, target customers
• Manage your communication investment portfolio
• Differentiate in any way you can
• Engagement and experience as the new 30-second ads
• Apply a "focus investing" approach
• Establish a measurement culture
• Leverage your employee capital 

I quite liked two tips here.

1. The one on engagement and experience as the new 30 sec ads. This requires a lot of processes and breakdown of silos in the organization. But, it is a critical factor, if marketing has to make business impact.
2. Establish a measurement culture is also a great tip as it is a culture often missing among marketing fraternity. It's always the output that's the focus. Once the output is complete, one tends to forget to continously measure the business impact across all marketing investments not just TV ads only.

Accountable Mass Media

Well, don't these words - Accountable & Mass media present an irony of sorts to you? 

Yes, surely this has been the way things have been happening for last 3-4 decades. Mass marketing has never been accountable. It's never been addressable 'one household at a time' too. Either, it was not possible or it was too expensive to do it. Technology is surely breaking down these myths and introducing possibilities like never before. Take a look at how this happening or expected to unfold in the near future:

"Since May, Google has been selling ads on the 125 national satellite channels distributed by EchoStar Communications’ DISH Network. Cable networks routinely provide distributors with a few minutes each hour for local commercials; Google is responsible for a portion of EchoStar’s local time and creates an online auction market for it.

Google then analyzes the data from set-top boxes to determine exactly which ads were watched or skipped, with a second-by-second breakdown. With Nielsen’s help, Google will begin to take that information and overlay sampling-based ratings, adding a rich demographic layer to the raw numbers that EchoStar provides."

The reports from Google can pinpoint the moment when viewers most commonly changed the channel, potentially helping marketers shape the creative work on their commercials. For instance, if viewers are turning the channel after seven seconds, the agency might revisit the opening of the ad.

“We see a future in which, when you sit down in front of your television set, you will see ads that are more relevant for you,” said Mr. Steib of Google. “When we make advertisements more relevant to viewers, inventory becomes more valuable and the return on investment is much higher for advertisers.”

Marketing is content - Part II

Continuing with my thinking on this topic, NY Times has interesting article that further reinforces this thought:

Behind the shift is a fundamental change in Nike’s view of the role of advertising. No longer are ads primarily meant to grab a person’s attention while they’re trying to do something else — like reading an article. Nike executives say that much of the company’s future advertising spending will take the form of services for consumers, like workout advice, online communities and local sports competitions.

“We want to find a way to enhance the experience and services, rather than looking for a way to interrupt people from getting to where they want to go,” said Stefan Olander, global director for brand connections at Nike. “How can we provide a service that the consumer goes, ‘Wow, you really made this easier for me’?”

Traditionally, the “service” provided by advertising was cheaper media content for consumers. But the services of the future may be virtual workout coaches, map applications for cellphones, health advice and matchmaking services.

I think this kind of content fused with enriched data( on what customers use as a service, which will arise out this content) will drive the future of marketing. 

Marketing is content

I just love this thought by John Jantsch on how marketing today is all about content.  I can't agree with him more. Marketing is no more about messages, no more about offers, no more pushy about sales messages. It's transforming into a world of content. That's really what consumers want to read, enjoy and absorb.

While he has focussed on small business and their needs, I think there is a bigger thought for even large companies.

If you have a product, find out what content can you create around it?

He talks about the concept of creating mixed media content and how businesses need to adapt to provide such content to their prospects. He writes" Now when a surfer goes to a search engine looking for content they may find local directory results, images and video mixed into the organic results. If you aren't producing these types of content you may find it tougher to compete."

To me again, this is just not restricted to the web. It's applicable to every form of media - TV, Radio, DM, E-mail, telemarketing etc.

Next time , if you don't have content around your product, don't start marketing!!

Managing the multi-channel paradox in retail banking

Frost & Sullivan has released a report on managing the multi-channel challenges that retail banking is faced with today. According to the report, multi-channel banking has increased the potential for diminshed sales opportunities despite the expanded number of distribution channels!

The report says:

"...the number of bank channels and touch points have proliferated and so has the complexity of the service delivery which has added to the overall cost structure. Rather than lowering the overhead, the greater number of touch points actually prompted customers to increase their transactions - resulting in higher overall costs...."

Some of the best practice recommended are:

1. Meet and exceed the needs of the high value customers - Find ways to creatively service the needs of these customers.
2. Provide "consistent" quality of multi-channel  experience - Don't create a fragmented feel of interactions across multiple-channels.Create an organization-wide customer experience strategy.
3. Integrate across channels.
4. Provide action-oriented intelligence - Integrated data can provide proactive customer interaction measures.
5. Employ Event-based selling

I believe the key point here is getting different silos of retail banks to work together with a common customer experience strategy across mutiple product offerings, agreed metrics around different channels( for acquisition, retention, cross-sell and customer service issues) and drawing-up proper handshake processes between channels when customers interact with banks.

The end of marketing as we know it

Nishad pointed me an interesting post from Zeus Jones on the trend of convergence of marketing & operations.

They believe two themes seem to be emerging:

• The increasing focus on customer experience and usability within companies. Smart companies now realize that their core offerings shouldn't be wrapped with a customer friendly veneer. Instead usability and experience should be built in from the ground up.
• Marketing's move from creating images towards creating experiences.  The best marketing today are tangible proofs of company values and ideals. People look past propaganda and focus on what companies actually deliver.

I personally think this is increasingly felt as a need amongst CMOs/CEOs. The current siloed structure of organziations creates huge challenges for the CEO to make this happen as there are divergent objectives and agendas in the company. In the future, there will be more budgets allocated for change management, customer experience mapping etc. as business heads, operations and marketing need to collaborate to make customer experience come alive. This needs ground-up thinking and execution amongst these stakeholders.

Consumers - Which mediums do they trust the most?

Consumers have problems trusting online advertising, according to a global study by the Nielsen Company.  The survey claims messages in traditional media such as television, newspapers and magazines generated more confidence among consumers than those in web searches, links and banners.

Nielsen says 63% of respondents trusted newspaper ads, while 56% trusted TV spots and magazine placements. This contrasted with just 26% who trusted banner ads and 34% for search ads. Results for mobile ads, often touted as the next big thing, were disappointing as only 18% of those surveyed claimed to trust them.

Consumer reviews posted online were more favorably received with 61% of respondents trusting them, while 60% trusted brand websites. Personal recommendations scored highest with 78% of those surveyed expressing confidence in them.

Consumer-generated media in general scored highly. Globally, 61% of respondents said they trusted blogs and other forms of CGM, while the figure in North America was even higher at 66%.

Credit Card marketing in Facebook

Rob Walker has an interesting article on how Chase has developed a credit marketing  program in Facebook.

“We felt Facebook would be a good partner for us, since they had such strong credibility in the students’ world,” explains Sangeeta Prasad, who oversees branding for Chase Card Services. “And we felt, you know, financial institutions lacked credibility. Students don’t see credit-card issuers or financial institutions in general as meeting their needs.” Thus the company started offering a new card it called +1, primarily by way of a “sponsored” Facebook group.

The +1 program was largely devised by Noise Marketing, a company that specializes in reaching young adults with nontraditional branding tactics. Making Facebook central to a college-focused effort had obvious advantages. “Everyone talks about the fragmentation of the media,” observes Noah Kerner, the C.E.O. of Noise Marketing. “Yet there’s never been such a concentration of people from one segment in one place before.” The Chase + 1 group has attracted so many participants in large part because of a rewards-program scheme. One tweak of this familiar tactic is that some of the rewards are tied to “credit education” material. Kerner maintains this coupling is what’s “really resonated” with students. “It’s connecting with them on a basic level: ‘O.K., you’re not trying to pull the wool over my eyes, and I appreciate that,’ ” he says.

That said, the education component doesn’t use precisely the same curriculum that, say, Consumer Reports would design. Students are advised not to spend money they don’t have, which is hard to argue with. But some might replace the counsel to “Pay at least the minimum due on time so you don’t waste money on late fees” with a blunt example of how fast debt can accumulate if the minimum is all you pay.

Kerner says that more good-behavior incentives are in the works — like rewards for paying your bill on time. And it’s the rewards that really seem to draw people in. The +1 system involves racking up “karma points.” You get 1 for joining the group, 15 for registering your +1 card, 5 for taking a brief “credit essentials” quiz and so on. These points can be disposed of only within Facebook: either spent at a special store (White Stripes’ “Icky Thump”: 10 points; Ticketmaster gift card: 35 points; Facebook T-shirt: 10 points), donated to one of several designated charities or given to other Facebook members.

Interesting isn't it? Looks like there is a convergence of traditional direct marketing thinking with web and loyalty for which Facebook seems to be a great platform to begin with.

Google Phone and push advertising - Is it still old world marketing?

Business Week has an article on Google Phone and its impact on targeted push-based advertising:

Imagine your cellphone as a mini marketing machine. As you head into your car after dinner, a text alert pops onto the screen of your handset announcing the 9 p.m. lineup at a nearby cineplex. You choose the Jodi Foster flick The Brave One and a promo video for the next Warner Bros.

That kind of 24/7 advertising engagement--on a phone, no less--may sound like a nightmare. But what if you could determine the kinds of products you get pitched? Or, when your flight gets canceled in a faraway airport, text messages pop up for the best hotel deals in town? No random insurance ads or airline deals for trips to places you never visit. Best of all: Watch or read the custom ads, and your phone minutes are free.

Google and advertisers drool over the growth potential in wireless. The more than 2 1/2 billion phones in use worldwide exceed the number of PCs and TVs combined. On Sept. 17, Google announced a Web program aimed at advertisers who have created sites for display on cell phones and other handheld devices. Like its online ad network, Google's AdSense for Mobile delivers ads relevant to the advertiser's mobile audience. "The sheer volume of users across the globe makes mobile the next channel for information," says Dilip Venkatachari, director of product management for Google's mobile team.

Doc Searls has a fantastic point of view on how this is just getting no where and is becoming extremely customer unfriendly. Take a look at his view on this:

Here’s my nirvana scenario,...:

No damn advertising at all. I don’t care how warm and fuzzy Google is, I don’t want to be tracked like an animal and “targeted” with anything, least of all guesswork about what I want, no matter how educated that guesswork is. Tools on my phone that let me tell sellers what I want, and on my terms – and not just on theirs. Whether that’s a latte two exits up the highway, next restaurant that serves seared ahi, or where I can buy an original metal slinky. I want to be able to notify the market of my shopping or buying intentions without revealing who I am, unless it’s on mutually agreed-upon terms.

Even when we study customer wants and needs, our perspective is anchored on the sell side. We ask “Which company (or product, or service) will serve them best?”, rather than “How can we as customers best express our wants and needs so that any seller can fill them?” The ironic distance between these two perspectives is deep and immense.

I agree with Doc totally, after sometime only advertising funded business models(around which there is so much hype) sound a bit far fetched to me. It assumes that customers are wanting every product or service free or subsidized in exchange for ' targeted'  advertising messages!!! Also, the other huge assumption that I am willing to give up my privacy and personal information for all of this, also sounds quite impossible to believe and not just there waiting to happen in the immediate future.

It needs a new model keeping the customer in the centre of all this rather than sellers!

Getting your blog strategy right

If you are a company having a blog where potential or current customers visit, Greg Verdino has some great advice on how to make it interesting and compelling:

"..we put together this simple graphic that presents the 7 Strands of Blog DNA - the key elements that, when combined in a unique way, make any given blog what it is.  Original, compelling and unlike anything else on the web."

Google Widgetvertising

Google today is launching a new effort to turn widgets into ads. A select group of brand advertisers are working with Google on special Google gadgets (widgets) that iGoogle users can place on their Google homepage.

What are Gadget Ads?

Gadget ads can incorporate real-time data feeds, images, video and much more in a single creative unit and can be developed using Flash, HTML or a combination of both. Designed to act more like content than a typical ad, they run on the Google™ content network, competing alongside text, image and video ads for placement.

See some examples here.

Is it customer or consumer?

The word customer and consumer is used interchangeably today.What's right? Should we, as marketing folks, understand where to use customer or consumer? Susan has some interesting take on this:

My real problem was that I'd crossed over from a world where the buyers of your services have individual names (financial services), to a world where the buyers of your goods are largely a nameless mass (most consumer products).

What's the difference between a product and a service, really?

Here's a nice definition for a service:

"Any act or performance offered that is essentially intangible and does not result in ownership of any thing"    - Prof. Brian Engelland, MSU

You are dealing with a service when...

[1] Production and consumption are hard to separate. Examples: travel, investments

[2] Intangibles form a large part of what is being purchased. Examples: insurance, consulting

[3] There is no change of ownership. Customers typically rent a service, rather than owning it. Examples: credit card or loan, hotel room

[4] A sale that does not happen today cannot be recovered in the future. Examples: empty seats in a theatre, lost interest on a mortgage

[5] Customers must evaluate the purchase decision with few tangibles to go on. Examples: health care

[6] Output quality is variable, and depends on the performance of individuals. Examples: Hair styling, interior decorating, surgery

[7] Manner of dress, body language, and expressed language form part of the brand experience.  Examples: air travel, retail banking

[8] Cycle of purchase is repeated through 'rental payments'. There is no smooth movement through a consumption cycle, and there are frequent 'moments of truth'.  Examples: health club membership, anti-virus software rental, weight-loss groups

[9] Employees behavior and knowledge is central to delivery and quality. Examples: financial planning

[10] The memories of the experience may be as important as the experience itself. Examples: vacation travel, theme parks

[11] There are high degrees of customer contact during production. Examples: health care, spa services

[12] Competing offerings may differ in how much of the work of production is shifted to the buyer.  Examples: online brokerage vs. full service, self-serve vs. full service gas station

[13] Suppliers assume real economic risks (exceeding the revenue potential) by choosing a given customer. Some interested customers must be rejected. Examples: credit cards, insurance, auditing

[14] Customers assume real economic risks (exceeding the fee paid for the service) by choosing a given supplier. Examples: mutual funds, home insurance

[15] Everyone calls them clients, users or customers, rather than consumers

So now you know. There you have it. Try to keep your customers and your consumers straight now, okay?

Learning customer loyalty from Apple

Inside CRM has a very nice and insightful post on how Apple creates loyal customers. No points, no cards - just pure, enriching experiences and great products. Here are a few that I liked the most:

A store just for Apple:Apple has historically been troubled by big-box sales staffers that are "tragically ill-informed" about its products, a problem that made it difficult for Apple to set its very different products apart from the rest of the computing crowd. By creating a store strictly devoted to Apple products, the company has not only eliminated this problem but has made an excellent customer-loyalty move.

Complete solutions: Apple's products complement and complete each other. Buy an iPod, and you can download music via iTunes.

Media fodder:Apple gift wraps news stories that are just begging for speculation and hype. By perpetuating this cycle of media frenzy, Apple reminds its customers that they're excited about buying new Apple products now and in the future.

New innovations:By giving customers an opportunity to employ Apple in their living rooms, pockets and offices, Apple makes it easy to stay loyal to a brand they already like.

Future of Marketing

Here's a nice quote from Todd Watson of IBM:

"Trackable, slicable, diceable, inferenceable, correlative, targeted digital advertising and communication based on explicit consumer expressions (search queries, online viewing, online shopping behaviors, etc.)  is the future of marketing. It's not just about the eyeballs anymore.  And increasingly, it's going to be all about the data"

The difference between network and community

I have noted offlate, there has been a lot of interest with marketers talking about the need to build online communities and getting closer to their customers online. There has been a lot of action around this, where brands have built programs or websites or built sponsored content within a group on the web to make this happen. I have often wondered how will all this work for brands. Some of the questions, I have always had are:

• When brands enable specific online spaces for consumers to meet and spend time, what is the desired impact that the brands hope to achieve and what will be results or ROMI(Return on Marketing Investment) of such an initiative?
• Do marketers believe that consumers will find their best network of friends/ interest group in a specific branded online space and is that the best place to meet and share ?
• Consumers are interested in hobbies, interests - like music, food, beauty, friends, dating etc. Why will they align themselves to specific brand related community sites?
• How many such branded online spaces as a consumer will they become a member of? It's crazy given the amount of brands one consumes and interests that one has! Also, take into context millions of things they would like to do on the web.
• What's the motivation for repeat visits for such spaces and how does one keep the interest alive?

For example, closer home in India, we have sunsilkgangofgirls promoted by Unilever. I registered into this website and went into different gangs(groups) to seek answers to my questions. I was really not suprised to see very few members in different gangs - Uptown Club, famous 5, sushmitateam had just one or two members while there were several such hundreds of gangs that have been started or registered. While there are a lot of activities and content in this site, engaging the gangs with all of this is the key task and challenge, I presume.

In this context, I came across a very interesting point of view by Chloe Stromberg of Forrester on how marketers need to understand the difference between community and network as it is often misused.

I hear marketers using the words "community" and "network" interchangeably.

But a community is just one type of network.  My working definition of network is: a group of people who have something in common and who have a motivation for connecting.  For example, a bunch of people who all buy the same brand of toilet paper, but have no desire to meet, are not a network.

It's easy to recognize different types of connected groups offline.  But as marketers wade into the less familiar universe of social computing, a lot of people assume that any type of online network associated with their brand is an online community.

What other types of online networks are there?

• Emotive networks (e.g., CarePages, PreludeDriver.com) -- Commonality: a powerful emotional experience, like being diagnosed with an illness or loving a particular type of car.  Motivation to connect: find people to share your experience with.
• Advice networks (e.g., Berkeley Parents Network, del.icio.us) -- Commonality: you're trying to do an activity like parenting in the Bay Area, learning about emerging technologies.  Motivation to connect: get suggestions from someone whose perspective you value.
• Dating networks (e.g., Match.com, Yahoo! Personals) -- Commonality: you're single, maybe you share similar social values.  Motivation to connect: meet a sweetheart (not a community).
• Blog networks (e.g., Micropersuasion, Greg Mankiw's Blog) -- Commonality: the ideas that you're interested in.  Motivation to connect: affect the public dialogue about the ideas.
• Wiki networks (e.g., Wikipedia, CarGurus) -- Commonality: you want the unvarnished, comprehensive truth to be free and available.  Motivation to connect: get the whole picture.
• Linkedin -- Commonality: you want to leverage business relationships.  Motivation to connect: get a sales/deal contact, recruit someone, find a job.
• Facebook -- Facebook is a tool, not a network, although that may be changing.  Existing offline networks use Facebook to socialize.  Commonality: having gone to the same college.  Motivation to connect: Socialize or build relationships with people of social standing.  (I'm going to dodge the class bullet on this one -- Dana Boyd has kicked off the discussion here:http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html)
• Myspace -- There is a strong commercial dimension to the networks forming on Myspace.  Commonality: anything.  Motivation to connect: be found by anyone, share.  This open-door, hello-world atmosphere is especially conducive to small biz commercial activity (e.g., if I'm an unsigned band, I want anyone anywhere in the world to find me, buy my music, and come to a show).

It is important for marketers to understand the 'motivation to connect' as they go about building their 'network of customers' for their brands online.

TiVo of the Online World

NY Times has an article on whiting out of ads in the online world thro' a software called Adblock Plus, very much akin to TiVo in the offline world. Adblock is an open source software and has already over 2.5 million users!! Here's an example of how a whole business model of advertising will get hiccups with applications such as this in an online world.

The key point however to me is that in an online world the traditional model of advertising based on interruption, will not work. Else, consumers will take control and reject them with applications like Adblock plus. Hence, the old world form of communication - banners, emailers belong to the Advertising 1.0 world. SEM, SEO are at least a lot more contextual but even these will have to evolve as they will become blindspots in some time.

However communication in the online world will have to change from "Informing" to " Entertaining". Hence, we will need a lot more "Content thinkers" rather than "creative Copywriters/Art directors" who are trained to "sell" products or develop "messages". Consumers will consume content that's interesting, involving and participative.It's got to have some gossip value, surprise value, upgradable value to consumers so that they can pass it along with their comments or inputs. To me the more I think, the online model of communication has to have a mix of  TV programming, TV commercials, event marketing, promotions, traditional DM rolled into one.

It's got be as "unadvertising" as possible. I guess only that format will lead to a lot more believability, credibility, have some retention value in consumers' minds and will not be blocked!

In the online world, we need to forget the word " Advertising" and think "Contentization" .

Nokia - From selling phones to selling services

Nokia has announced the launch of digital music service.

NY Times reports the Nokia Music Store, to open this year, will let users download songs from the Internet to their computers or directly to mobile phones over wireless networks, which Apple’s recently released iPhone cannot do.

Nokia said it would price music downloads at 1 euro for each song, or 10 euros for each album, in the same price range as many existing mobile music services. In addition, customers would have to pay for the use of phone networks for the download, though many operators are starting to offer monthly flat-fee packages.