At the moment we are 12 brave wo/men - but want to allure all brave wo/men out there! Just to give you a very small hint on what we are talking about please inhale the following list.
(Yeah, I know, some 20.000+ great people are not on that list. But you do know: there is no definitive list of great people.)
This is not about names. The personalities beyond them will give you a pretty good picture what I am talking about. They are the wild-card characters of entrepreneurial personalities and spirit, of motivation, engagement, and dedication I would love to see @TheThirdClub:
What we have done up till now is limit our thinking of what online can do based on a narrow view of what marketing can do. But what happens when marketing changes?
Traditional advertising and design has one goal: to deliver a promise, either based on what the consumer wants to become, or what the brand wants to become. All traditional marketing, advertising and design is built around this core idea: the transmission of an idea from a sender to a receiver. Inside this mindset digital offers some abilities that are new, and speeds up some abilities that are old. But in essence digital is nothing more than a technological option – a choice between newspaper, billboard, TV, radio or internet ++.
“The web essentially is a planetary-scale nervous system where individual minds take on the role of synapses, firing electrical pattern-signals to one another at light speed - the net effect being an astonishing increase in creative output.
Jason Silva, Venezuelan-American television personality, filmmaker, gonzo journalist and founding producer/host for Current TV, Connecting All The Dots, Dec 10, 2010"
More than ever you might learn now - by observing what happens within Google Plus - how vulnerable social networks are. The more vulnerable the more closed they are.
To start early with G+ (and brief your agency accordingly so they do not oversleep like they did with facebook) you should get at least a slight idea of its potential:
- Google Plus and Docs = collaborative publishing on the fly. - Google Plus and Youtube = exponential video sharing. - Google Plus and Latitude = Foursquare killer. - Google Plus and Translate = a true social media Babel fish. - Google Plus and Sites = Facebook Fan page killer. - Google Plus and Adwords = a viable, trackable and ROI effective monetisation model for social media.
I’m an inventor, and I started looking at long-term trends because an invention has to make sense in the world in which it was finished, not the world in which it started.
This short quote hits on several important points:
We have to be thinking about the future because innovation always takes much longer than we expect it to: innovation is a three part process – idea generation, idea selection and execution, and idea diffusion. In particular, idea execution can often take a (very!) long time, as can idea diffusion.
Innovation requires vision: the first part of the process, idea generation, requires vision. While there is often an overemphasis on ideation, innovation does always start with a great idea.
We need a methodology for thinking about the future: one way or another, we need to think about where the world is heading. There are many ways to do this. We can make sure that in addition to tending to our core business, we also spend some time finding out what is going on out on the edges. We can use collaborative methods, as outlined in The Open Foresighting project (that link is to Venessa Miemis’ blog – go there and scroll down to the Futures Thinking links in the right column for more great resources in this area). We can use scenario planning – here is a recent version discussed on The Long Now Blog, another good resource. We can extrapolate based on what’s going on today.
In reality, we probably need to undertake a combination of all of these techniques. And just as importantly, we have to combine thinking about the future with a culture of experimentation. It’s experimenting that ensures that we are finding ideas that will actually work.
Our job is to invent the future, and to do that, first we have to formulate a good idea of what the future should be.
(ralf says: It often also makes sense to look at 3 groups of people: 01 kids, and what they love to do - 02 most admired companies - like Apple, Google, Twitter - of the world, and where they are heading - 03 politicians, and what they are prohibiting. This will give you a multi-dimensional picture of the future.
You just have to be better than that.)
Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle
Most service providers like to say they “eat their own dog food.” Not Jon Miller, co-founder and VP Marketing of Marketo. Miller prefers “drink your own champagne,” and not just because it sounds classier. This preference is based on the stunning fact that Marketo is according to Miller, “currently the fastest growing software-as-a-service company in the world,” a feat accomplished by using their own software to turn marketing into a science.
Founded in 2006, Marketo already has over 1,000 clients, who pay just under $30,000 per year with the goal of improving the yield of their marketing activities. Miller and his team rejected the notion that marketing was an art form, relegating that to the “Mad Man” era, preferring to focus on “process and analysis,” and in doing so delivered to this interviewer 8 delicious ways to drive revenue.
1. Don’t call a lead before its time For most marketers, a lead is a lead, entered into a CRM system like Salesforce and treated with equal urgency. According to Miller’s research, this approach means that, “only 6% of leads ever close” and “only half of the sales people make their sales goals.” Having been able to identify key buying signals, Marketo’s system separates leads into two buckets, the 20% who are “ready to buy,” and those that require nurturing.
2. Know the buying signals of your prospects Just because a visitor to your site gives you their contact information for something like a white paper, doesn’t mean necessarily that they a qualified lead. Explained Miller, “if somebody downloaded our webinars or thought leadership [documents], we know they’re at the early stage.” However, reported Miller, “if you go to our website and see the detailed pricing pages or register to watch a detailed demo, you’re very likely to enter a buying cycle with us.”
3. If they give the sign, call your leads post haste When all leads are given equal value, they naturally clog up the sales process, wasting the time of both the prospect who isn’t ready and the sales person who then becomes skeptical of all the leads, further diminishing the yield. But if only truly qualified leads go into sales pipeline, the sales force is reading and willing to jump all over them. Added Miller, “if you show buying signs, we’re going to be dialing your phone in 3-4 minutes!”
4. Reward your marketing team more and raise quotas At most companies, marketing generates about 30% of the leads, which means the sales force needs to be heavily incentivized to not just close but also to find the leads themselves. “At Marketo our marketing team generates 80% of the sales pipeline,” explained Miller. This has allowed them to “radically reduce the salesperson’s risk” and “change how [we] compensate the marketing department.” And because Sales has better quality leads, they close at a higher rate, allowing Marketo to raise quotas and hire fewer sales staff.
5. Focus sales team on closing not educating According to Miller’s research, at most companies “almost half of the salesperson’s time is spent on unproductive activities.” This includes educating prospects on the category and the product. “This is outmoded thinking,” explained Miller, since today “70% of the buying cycle is complete before the buyer wants to connect with Sales.” Assuming you are providing all the necessary educational material online then you too can “optimize the demand chain” by only giving Sales leads that are ready to be closed.
6. Hire a CRO After all this talk of marketing efficiency, one of the more surprising outcomes of my conversation with Miller was his suggestion that companies hire a Chief Revenue Officer and place Marketing and Sales underneath that person. Explained Miller, whose company just hired a CRO, “I don’t believe you can have a CMO and a CRO.” This is not “a glorified Head of Sales,” added Miller, but someone who can lead “a fundamental transformation about how you think about generating revenue.”
7. Nurture all your other leads While the bulk of this conversation has focused on identifying and converting hot leads, this is only half the secret to Marketo’s success. The other half is the recognition that today’s tire kickers are tomorrow’s buyer as long as you have a strong “nurturing process to educate and stay in touch with them over time,” noted Miller. He added, “a full half [of our leads] are coming from seeds we developed earlier.”
8. Invest heavily in content development When explaining Marketo’s success to-date, Miller revealed that they invest heavily in marketing, spending three times the ratio of most companies but because of their lead conversion rate, they are also more efficient and profitable than these other companies. A huge portion of that investment goes into content development including webinars, white papers, blogs and social media. In addition to creating “a lot of inbound leads and SEO, [this content] also helps to build trust and credibility with buyers who are starting to perceive us as innovators and thought leaders,” explained Miller.
Final note: A magna cum laude physics major at Harvard, Miller’s desire to find the math in marketing shouldn’t be all that surprising. What may come as a surprise is the extent of Miller’s foresight as exemplified by the fact that he “actually started writing [his] blog before writing any product.” For more on Miller, see my follow up interview here on TheDrewBlog.com. This article first appeared on FastCompany.com.
(ralf says: Take the 8 headlines and add your individual content with your own experience and expertise. The above raises the bar? Start stretching!)
Drew is the CEO of Renegade, the digital & guerrilla marketing agency from New York City that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service." Twitter: @DrewNeisser
The successful brand lives 'empathy. engagement. reciprocity!' to create an individual Win-Win! sensation: a truly Monopolistic Moment.
No, not the multinationals succeed in doing so. They are too far away from the real life of people, citizens, and consumers. Strangely enough.
Not the multinationals are the trendsetters, the true innovators. Real trends are set by students/individuals developing Facebook, Yahoo, Google, flickr, tumblr, typepad, Skype. Newcomers found Tesla Motors, etc. these days - not those guys like Mercedes just advertising (but not delivering) 125 years of innovation.
Everybody may become a player on the world's markets. May become disruptive with new products, brands, and business models. And many do.
And they are even more successful, if their brand engagement is on a par with product development. Engagements establish communication life cycles. Communication life cycles are on a par with product life cycles.
Within huge corporations that would imply to reorganize marketing, costumer service, R&D, etc., more or less the whole company structure ...
.. and to add a new culture: Win-Win! situations are based upon reciprocal cultures - outside (with customers) and inside (between co-workers) the corporation. They do not exist in bigger corporations as a given. They have to grow. They must flourish. They have to be lived, cultured, and inspired from role models at the top.
Successful brands create Informal Markets and Plug.Play.Win-Win! relationships by anticipating human's new individuality, independence, and impatience - outside and inside the corporation!
"Everyone has heard of “word of mouth.” It’s a grassroots style of marketing that uses the goodwill of current and future customers and magnifies it as much as possible.
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Two things have changed with social media emerging as a primary marketing venue. First, the potential to have messages amplified is much higher - individuals can spread their message much more prolifically through social media than they ever could before through standard “word of mouth.” Second, businesses have a greater amount of control over not only how amplified their message is but also how they can monitor what’s being said.
The “mouth” has been replaced by the “click.” It’s a “Word of Click” world, now, and businesses must be willing to use it if they want to truly take advantage of social media."
Read more about - Understanding the Power - Monitoring the Clicks - Encouraging Word of Click - Tools to Master the Click at The New Hotness: Word of Click Marketing, flowtown.
Note: I like ;): "I don’t think Net Promoter is about like, its about love" in the following interview. ... Enjoy! (L/M NET features Drew's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)
The following are highlights of my interview with Deborah Eastman, the former CMO and current GM of Global Consulting at Satmetrix, shortly after her presentation on Social Media at the Satmetrix Net Promoter® Conference. By the way, there were over 500 people at this conference with a sizable representation from a number of really big companies like Verizon Wireless, Symantec, AAA, American Express, Dell, Fidelity Investments, Merck, and Intuit. (You will find the article inspired by this conference on MediaPost.com.)
In the off chance that Net Promoter is a new concept to you, click here. The rest of you are probably well aware of the idea that was first popularized in Fred Reicheld’s book, “the Ultimate Question,” and have seen my references to it in several past posts.
What are the challenges of integrating social media and Net Promoter? The challenge is that if you do [integrate social and NPS®] you also need to integrate it with your CRM system so you can do NPS by segment. You need to know if they are customers or not. You need to know if they are high value customers or not. And we would advocate this is not about collecting a score, this is about improving the experience in a closed-loop process is a critical part of that.
Would it make sense to put your Net Promoter Score right up on website? I’m not a big fan of publishing your NPS especially to your customers because, who cares! I mean, do your customers really care what your NPS is? What customers care about is what experience they get. And our personal philosophy is that Net Promoter is about building a customer-centric culture, which you deliver a positive customer experience. The result of that is a high Net Promoter Score. Focusing on the score is having the wrong conversation.
Should we anticipate Net Promoter being asked on a Facebook fan page? We’d like to see a better integration of Net Promoter and social media. In face, we’d love to see that. The challenge, I see today is that its all about social media marketing. We [marketers] haven’t connected the dots between Net Promoter and social media in a way that allows us to really take advantage of those visitors.
In the egalitarian world of social media, even a small voice can have a big impact. Is there a risk in treating some customers better via social channels? We have what we call “the voice according to value,” so when you think about Net Promoter as a customer feedback process, [not all customers are equal.] If I call American Airlines as an Executive Platinum member, I should get a differentiated experience from the guy that flies once a year to go visit grandma. The example I gave with Stephen Fry, is the potential brand impact that [his tweets] had differentiated him [because of] his influence not necessarily his value as an [individual] customer. That influence translates to value.
Does this same notion apply to B2B customers? I think you should always be looking at segmentation of your customers in order to treat your customers differently. In a B2B environment you should be treating – understanding the needs of a decision maker differently than an end user. So I absolutely believe in that.
Is there any kind of equivalency between a Like on Facebook and a Net Promoter? Like to me is opting in. I don’t think it identifies you as a Promoter or a Passive or a Detractor. You could be liking a particular thread, you could be liking the brand, [there are] all kinds of ways to like. And quite honestly, I don’t think Net Promoter is about like, its about love. When you really create a Promoter, you create an emotional connection that is closer to love than like.
Should we expect a Satmetrix plug-in that will work right on Facebook? Not on our immediate road map. I am much more interested in integrating the voice of the customer into the closed-loop process, which is the most important part of a Net Promoter program. Having fragmented listening channels without a closed-loop process is a disadvantage for our customers. Whether or not we collect scores through Facebook or those types of things, we’ll let our customers drive us there.
A lot of people here have the title “customer experience executive,” and a lot of companies have social media people, is there a world where these folks are in all in the same department? In my perfect world, yes! What Symantec has done is interesting–they’ve established a Social Media Council and I actually think that’s where we’ll see this go. This [type of council] brings together all of the key stakeholders which would include marketing, customers experience execs, probably include the support organization and the product org for idea generation. This would bring together multi-functional representation to be looking at social media from an enterprise perspective.
Whats happens if these departments aren’t working together? Social media is another channel for customer experience but its fragmented [right now]. Marketing is doing their thing; service is doing their thing. To me, Starbucks would be a great example. You go to the Starbuck Facebook page — you can actually top off your Starbucks card (clearly owned by marketing) and then there’s Starbucks Ideas which is this community that consumers can provide ideas for what they want from Starbucks. But you can’t access Starbucks Ideas from their Facebook page. [That]just illustrates a siloed mentality.
A year from now, do you expect the folks here will come back with their social media stories? I don’t know if it will move that fast. We’ll want to watch their progression with NPS. Companies like Symantec are very advanced on their Net Promoter communities so they are integrating NPS in social media channels but many of the attendees here are still early on their journey. They are still trying to figure out how to build a closed-loop process, never mind integrating it with social media.
Any final words of wisdom bringing these two worlds together? I don’t think it is about [getting the Net Promoter] score, I think it is about creating a social experience that creates promoters. Right now we just want to get the Net Promoter guys at the table because [social media] is typically owned by marketing and treated in a very fragmented fashion and we would advocate that you want to make sure that at least that’s connected with your Net Promoter program.
FYI: Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.
Drew is the CEO of Renegade, the digital & guerrilla marketing agency from New York City that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service." @DrewNeisser
I sketched this cartoon while on hold with United Airlines last week. I spent a total of two hours and 12 minutes with United over four separate phone calls trying to get home from New York after the storm, so I had a lot of time to think about service.
Many brands fall down on service. They view it as a cost center. Yet, all the marketing dollars invested in animated TV ads and direct mail mail pieces can be evaporated by a couple bad service experiences.
Marketers dream of having a captive consumer audience. Most brands struggle for attention. United had two hours and 12 minutes of my time. I was captive all right. But as I listened to the George Gershwin United theme song over and over again, I had time to think about all of my frustrations with United (and question just how much that Premier Executive frequent flyer status was worth it).
Of course, bad weather isn’t United’s fault. But, dealing with the aftermath of bad weather is simply part of being an airline. Excelling at resolving situations when things go wrong is part of how any brand is judged.
A few years ago, I interviewed with Apple for a marketing role with AppleCare, their service and support plan. At first, I didn’t see how a service plan was even marketing. But then I realized that the moment Apple products break is exactly the moment that Apple proves itself as a brand. The genius at the Genius Bar or the AppleCare phone operator are front-line brand managers. Those experiences directly drive how a consumer feels about a brand, and what stories they share with others.
If you haven’t seen it already, take a look at Dave Carroll’s music video that captures his rough service experience with United. His experience obviously touched a nerve. The video has been seen 9.9 million times and Time Magazine named it the seventh most viral video in 2009. The Times even speculated that the video and bad PR fallout prompted a 10% stock price drop for United. Service is as much a part of marketing as the four Ps.
Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne
Some of you might have guessed already from last weeks newsletter delivery that something changed. You are right.
I switched from 1300hrs to 1700hrs to serve the time zones from New York to LA better - without neglecting Europe (which translates into 0800hrs LA, 1100hrs NY, 1700hrs Berlin).
Hope you like that.
(PS: Feed accuracy (right after publishing the resp. post, instead of given fixed hours) still depends upon feedburner/google.)
"We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality.
It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt.
No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet."
The world is changing that fast that you cannot become (or stay) successful, if you base your fate on 'old' innovations and products launched years before.
Open your eyes - all innovation lies right before you. You will see it in the eyes of the individual (and the people) around the world. In their new individuality, independence, and impatience.
It seems to be more a German than an international problem. Germans are not born to serve, and after that never grew into it ... not as individuals at the customer front or in top management, not as societies or companies as a whole.
Of course those corporations, managers, and brands pay lip services in public, in advertising, and everytime they are asked. But they do not truly understand, that their products and brands are sold despite the (bad) service they do deliver, not because of that (good) service they could deliver. And that is: Service before and during the sales process and of course after sales.
Change the Game!
I know you believe in the magic powers of the brand, the image, and communications. Don't! You can do better than that!
Just imagine every single employee being your brand's ambassador, your brand's advocat. Every single employee out there being your brand's face to the customer. Every single employee representing your brand's core, character, and vision.
Plug.
And now: visit them, do not phone them. Visit them physically, do not just ask the board member responsible for the sales operation.
Play.
And now: compare what you see and experience with what you would like to see and experience. And now: develop a strong strategy to close that huge gap. Fast.
Win-Win!
If you do understand your brand, have a vision, and a core, implementation will be a no-brainer. Enjoy!
Note: A detailed look into Net Promoter and associated questions. Please enjoy! (lead/marke NET proudly features Drew's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)
For years, I’ve been counseling clients to use Net Promoter as the metric for measuring everything from overall brand health to the success of an event, customer satisfaction to online experiences. Undoubtedly, the likelihood of recommending a product or service to a friend is really important in the scheme of things but is it sufficient to make intelligent business decisions? Can one question alone even provide a clear picture of brand loyalty? After interviewing Calvin Vass, Senior Manager of Research at CDW, a company that has turned research into an insight-revealing, decision-enhancing, revenue-generating machine, my answers to the above questions in a word, is a contrite “No!” More importantly, my interview with Vass provides an exemplary questionnaire for any business looking to use research to reveal and leverage the “voice of the customer.”
Are you asking the right questions?
At the heart of any good research inquiry, of course, is the quality and ultimate value of the questions you ask. Over the last 11 years, CDW’s Vass has worked diligently to refine the questions his company asks, by listening to feedback from research professionals, his CDW coworkers and even the customers themselves. Rather than depend on one question, CDW’s loyalty index is based on “an approach developed by Fred Reicheld, the inventor of Net Promoter and Walker Information,” noted Vass. The questions explore, according to Vass, “different dimensions of the relationship; what the customer plans to purchase with us, if they are committed and what they would do if we went away.” Explained Vass, “Net Promoter is a one-dimensional kind of metric; one will often get better, more consistent results by asking more questions.”
Can you identify the questions that correlate strongest to your company’s sales?
The holy grail of any research program is to find the single barometer that has the strongest correlation to business health. For some companies, Net Promoter is this barometer. For CDW, it was the combination of their Customer Loyalty Index and a highly evolved loyalty program. Through their loyalty research, CDW also discovered that customers who filled out their survey wanted to see their feedback implemented. Consequently, CDW built a system that feeds customer complaints right back to sales for prompt resolution.
Do you segment your studies?
While Net Promoter divides customers into two camps, Promoters and Detractors, this black and white segmentation may or may not be right for your business. CDW elected to segment its market surveys into two main categories, Active Customers and Less Active Customers. The first group is surveyed quarterly and the second group is surveyed monthly. Vass explained the reason for the outreach to the second group, “we are always trying to bring them more deeply into the franchise.”
Do you use your research to uncover new business opportunities?
Measuring loyalty is unquestionably important but in a difficult economy, you’ll want to go deeper. Knowing that they were in a battle for “share of wallet” among even their most loyal customers, in 2009 CDW added to its research program. Explained Vass, “we asked them what types of technologies are you interested in rolling out in the next couple of months?” Through this research, CDW identified thousands of customers interested in specific offerings that were passed onto the sales team. These leads were turned into several hundred thousand quotes and orders placed, amounting to millions in additional revenue.
Is your research department really part of the team?
One of the great byproducts of Net Promoter is that it helped bring research back into vogue, though not necessarily into every C-suite. For CDW, reviewing customer loyalty data is a top priority up and down the organization. CDW leadership reviews customer feedback quarterly, which in 2009 resulted in new customer retention initiatives. Offered Vass, “this is a priority for our Sales, Operations and Marketing departments which allows us to have a truly unified customer loyalty program.” Added Vass, “it is the overall recognition that the voice of the customer [is critical],” who sees himself as part of the customer service team versus the traditionally isolated research platoon.
Are you using research to identify problems too?
With Net Promoter, the emphasis tends to be placed on the Promoters almost at the exclusion of the Detractors. In a battle for share of wallet, he who addresses customer issues the best, wins. And oh by the way, even Promoters can have issues. To address this reality, CDW uses its research to identify and take action on negative feedback and specific problems. Calling these “hot alerts,” CDW does its best to resolve them quickly and amicably. “When we first started doing this, the customers were surprised,” explained Vass, who also noted that just resolving something as simple as a shipping problem results in higher loyalty.
Do you have a customer community to ask for guidance?
While measuring loyalty is clearly important, it can’t in and of itself increase loyalty. Building a community of customers for research, on the other hand, can do just that and much more. Knowing this, CDW has built three private communities made up of 300 small, 300 medium and 300 large business customers. In addition to asking its communities for input on advertising, product and operational issues, each community is also encouraged to talk among themselves. Reported Vass, “they can ask another member about a specific type of technology; it is a very vibrant back and forth conversation, certainly not one-way at all.” He added, “these aren’t just loyal customers but super-loyal, providing feedback other customers couldn’t.”
Final note: This article first appeared on FastCompany.com and is currently being discussed on a Forrester Research community page. For a bit more balance, see the video below on Why People Love Net Promoter.
Drew is the CEO of Renegade, the digital & guerrilla marketing agency from New York City that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service." @DrewNeisser
"Brands don't become great by monitoring the past" ... "The challenge is to have a point of view on the future."
On Consumer's new individuality, indepencence, and impatience
"Consumers know what they want and are giving their opinions in an unconstrained fashion." ... "People are sharing their identity, building their networks online - sharing information and knowledge at rates never seen before".
On Tools and Wisdom
"I can only spend so much time physically walking the halls. But with these tools in place, I can actually take the pulse of the company".
On Social Media
"I think it would turn organisation structures upside down" ... "I think it would turn dramatically how you make decisions and drive productivity."
And now it is your turn to transform these words into actions! Enjoy!
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