Archive for May, 2010

Cross-Channel versus Multichannel

Friday, May 21st, 2010

The language we use to define our problems often influences the outcome.  Although it may seem semantical to worry about the difference between multi and cross-channel, the implications are actually pretty significant.

Multichannel generally applies to the ability to deliver messages to customers via any of the myriad channels.  This is the basic cost of admission in our digital, social media world where alternatives are always just a click away.  What this doesn’t address, however, is the synchronization of those efforts.

Looking at the future of marketing, marketers ability to drive performance and accountability will be tied to their ability to manage to channel, content, and customer.  A multichannel approach is great for managing to the channel level, but starts to fall apart at the content and certainly customer level.

Cross-channel marketing is about putting the customer at the center of the campaign and insuring you can deliver content that is all relatable to a customer.  While this is somewhat easy to describe, it is much more difficult in practice to execute.

Integrated, cross-channel marketing is clearly the future for marketing automation.  To fulfill its potential, however, these tools will need to evolve to reach new heights.  Start to look for the ability to listen, learn, understand, and plan all from within one application.

While multichannel isn’t bad, what you want is cross-channel.

Agree?  Disagree? Let me know your thoughts.

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A New Generation of Conver-sumers

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Guest Post by Michael Hulme, Professor, Institute of Advanced Study, Lancaster University

I have spent the last 11 years studying technology’s impact on human behaviour and sometimes we have to remind ourselves just how quickly we have adapted and changed our lifestyles around technological advancements. If you ask the man on the street when the internet launched they would probably think it was a lot earlier than 1991, many cannot remember a life BI (Before Internet)! What is interesting, is the latest chapter in the development of HomoInterneticus – Individualization. The report(Brands at Risk) launched this week has indeed highlighted an era of social change that organisations cannot afford to ignore. Consumers are now engagers and this potentially spells years of havoc for brands as they struggle to manage and respond to the influx of consumer opinion, questions and requests through numerous channels.

With incidents such as the BP oil spill and the Toyota brake scandal fresh in our minds, never has consumer trust been at such an all time low. The light at the end of the tunnel however, is that consumers that actively engage in the use of social media tend to feel more in control of relationships and more positive about their connection with organisations in general.  But I do not want you to focus on social media, this is not just another social media report, it is much bigger than that. It’s a call to action for all organizations to commit to a major investment in appropriate skills across every department to make the most of the opportunities that deep rooted and widespread societal changes  are creating. Social media is just one manifestation of these changes. The analysis, mobilisation and interpretation of data, quite possibly in real-time, presents significant challenges to the existing skill sets of current employees. The staggering thing is that many organisations still do not recognise the need to change.

What we need to remember is, that the technology that has empowered the customer through the proliferation of internet and mobile devices, is also technology that, combined with data collection, management and analysis technologies, will allow businesses to respond to this social change and build new forms of more personal, individualised engagement.

If you take one thing away from this report it’s to listen before you act, converse with your audience rather than broadcast at them. If you do this you will learn more, develop better products and have more loyal customers – now that has to be worth the effort.

A Little bit About Michael Hulme:

Professor Michael K. Hulme is an entrepreneur, marketer, strategist, academic and thought leader. Working with executives from major corporate businesses, he has helped develop models that help marketers better respond to and make decisions about the influences of media saturated, complex mobile societies. In this presentation, Michael shares the findings of his research and experience to offer practical advice on how to transition your marketing to a customer engaged approach.

Download the ‘Brands at Risk’ Full Report

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Engage or perish

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

We are in the midst of a major social change in the way consumers listen and engage with brands.  Never has it been so apparent that consumers are not interested in corporate structure; they merely wish to engage with a brand on their own terms.  Yet as marketing budgets are set to increase in 2010, what are brands doing to meet this desire for individualisation and seize the opportunities that it presents?

In a new report ‘Your Brand: At risk or Ready for Growth?’, launched by Alterian today, we found that consumer confidence in brands is at an all time low – only 5% of consumers surveyed trusted advertising and 8% believed ‘what the company says about itself’.  This equates globally to nearly $426 billion1 spent on ineffectual advertising activity in 2009 alone.

What’s evident from this is that the majority of marketers are simply not hitting the right note with their target audience.  As I’ve spoken about before, we’re now fully ensconced in an era of individualisation where traditional marketing is dead.  It’s longer adequate to adopt a strategy of mass broadcast and one-way conversations. Brands should be trying to understand communities rather than focusing on siloed communication channels and speak to consumers at an individual level.

Addressing this will present the number one marketing and wider business challenge over the coming decade.  The question is how quickly can brands evolve their marketing strategy? If brands are ready to increase marketing budgets let’s ensure that we focus that resource in the right places.

[1] Source: ‘This Year, Next Year’, Group M, December 2009

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Heads out of the sand time

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Whether or not social media has lived up to expectations of really defining the General Election, there can be no question that it opened the eyes (and ears) of politicians as they realise that they can now not only talk directly to the media without it being misinterpreted, but the public can now answer back, put their view across and, most importantly, be heard.

 But as I watch the dust beginning to settle around our new coalition government, what lessons can marketers learn from the politicians about the way consumers listen and engage with their brands, and more importantly, how can they act upon it and respond to them?

 

In a new report, ‘Your Brand: At risk or Ready for Growth?’, launched today, we urge marketers not to underestimate the significance of the challenge that faces them, like politicians, in reaching individual customers.  The report firmly echo’s my belief that this challenge, brought about by the major social change in the way consumers listen and engage with brands, means it’s no longer adequate to adopt a strategy of mass broadcast and one-way conversations with consumers.  Those days of marketing have gone.  Marketers like myself need to push for our entire organisation to listen, understand and engage on an individual level, which presents a major challenge, but also opportunities.

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Social Customer Service Tips from Sonia Holland

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Recently, Alterian’s special guest, Sonia Holland, Social Media Manager for Rent-a-Center, presented the May Social Media ROI Series webinar on Social Customer Service. In her presentation, Sonia shared some really smart and actionable communication tactics for companies who are responding to customer service issues online. I wanted to share a few of them here:

** You must tap into empathy when dealing with frustrated people online. Empathy is a skill that you can learn, improve upon and hone. Here’s how:

Teach yourself how to be on your customer’s side. For every online complaint you read, use the following mental exercise BEFORE YOU POST to ensure you are in a place to truly support your customer.

1. Listen first. The customer will not listen to you until you listen to them.

2. Strategically put your point of view and your company’s POV in the back seat. For a moment, forget about your knowledge of the company or even the customer. Don’t read their comment with an eye for your response. Don’t begin by mentally poking holes in their story. Read it from their point of view.

3. Keep your emotions in check. If you find yourself getting annoyed or frustrated, take a moment to calm yourself.

4. You know that you are almost ready to respond to the customer when you get to the point where you think, “That stinks!”

** You must use strong, positive words to help reframe and reposition conversations as you write about your brand. To help deliver on that approach, strive to implement the communication tactics developed by Spaeth Communications, whose methodology structures communication to influence what your audience hears, believes and remembers.

These are just a couple of the nuggets of wisdom that Sonia shared during her presentation. Check out the full recording here .

Thanks so much, Sonia Holland for presenting this insightful webinar and for teaching our guests how to use the power of words to improve online customer service.

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