Marketing Through Social Transitions

Chaos is the system reorganizing itself.

Sometimes I weary of the digital crowd talking to itself. While I’m guilty of speaking the jargon with abandon, occasionally, I feel like I’m speaking beatnik poetry from the 60’s and I need George Carlin to slap me up.

We’re learning. We’re reorganizing. We’re going from national to global and back again. We’re going from Latin to Slanguage and from physical to virtual. And still, in all fairness, the social media community is one of the most generous and responsive groups I have ever encountered - beatniks and all.

With so much opportunity and evolving complexity in the online and mobile arenas, not to mention the swings of global markets, how can you leverage your marketing experience to sort through these ever-emerging technologies and swiftly discriminate between your choices?

Not all of your customers are early adaptors – but even boomers are adapting swiftly. So as we transition we need to accommodate everyone’s communication preferences and the map has gone astral.

What learning can we carry forward? And what is net new?

Of course it starts with:
The brand. 
However you articulate your brand behaviors, identity and what you want the customer experience to be, it needs to be expressed in the online medium with the same rigor as it would offline. That seems so painfully obvious and yet... Do you remember how disjointed the offline Sears store was from the Sears catalog was from sears.com? They felt like three different companies. I think they were.

Now many have or are shifting their marketing and distribution to the online arena and some like amazon.com have always been virtual.

What should you do?
- Whatever the offline/online ratio, dedication to delivering the brand through every channel and available communications vehicle should remain paramount. Did I already say that seems painfully obvious? Some things really never change.

- Take the customers’ pain away. Can you help hockey families solve their scheduling nightmares? Or help travelers identify and solve the medical, climate and electrical needs for their trip? Providing information that leads to a cost/time saving solution or allows them to make an informed and confident purchase decision gives your brand the edge. New apps give you huge opportunities.

Customer Touchpoints. In the offline realm, P.O.P. and communications delivered through Centers of Influence dominated customer touchpoints because you knew you were engaging the customer while they were considering your category.

Now this becomes magnificently complex. With online and mobile in the mix your customer can purchase your product while riding in cab in Istanbul and with Twitter, a lightning rod of information that you did not provide, can reach them within moments.

What should you do?
- Employ a comprehensive listening strategy and be able to proactively respond, positively and with value, 24 hours a day.
- Deliver promotions, relevant content and transactions via mobile.
- Consider digital POP- If you don’t, your competition will.

The Decision Chain
The classic marketing tale is sending a box of cereal to market. It needs to survive the regional distribution and merchandising hurdles of the supermarket industry and if it does well, it ends up on the bottom shelf where ‘junior’ spots it from his seat in the bottom of the grocery cart and hollers up to mama to buy the sugary mix.

Now mom has mobile access to nutritional information, access to her social network of other mothers, and can purchase Earth’s Best Organic Oatmeal Cereal from amazon.com while she’s standing in line in SuperValu.

What should you do?
- Employ a comprehensive listening strategy and be ready to respond positively and with value, 24 hours a day.
- Have strong relationships with industry bloggers, passionate customers and present your brand P.O.V.. via blogs or other media.
- Be present and ready to deliver promotions, sales support, provide relevant content and transactions via social and mobile spaces.
- Consider digital POP

Cultural implications 

Historically we looked at Coke as the standard bearer for customer data. They knew the clothing, music, color and taste preferences of each demographic and made, packaged and promoted soft -drinks to match.

With the global reach of online and mobile technology, understanding cultural implications has gone way past discriminating between southern and eastern soda preferences. For example: Don’t try and sell unlucky phone numbers in China.

What should you do?
- Your homework. Understand the cultural context for your product or services.
- Hire a sociologist or anthropologist to help you understand the culture sensitivities of your audience.
- Be ready to adapt.

My next post will be an examination of tactics. Many of the considerations of offline communications transfer directly to online. We’ll look at similarities and the new dynamics of high-speed 24/7 access to the world of information creates for marketers.

In the meantime, get thee to a seminar. It's integral to the Listen. Learn. Adapt. strategy of survival. The online community offers lots of them and we should all be at all of them. But get to one of them anyway.

Content Marketing

I got excited listening to a teleseminar with Joe Pulizzi, Newt Barrett, Chris Brogan and Paul Gillin on content marketing for two reasons.
1. It’s smart marketing
2. It works in both the online and offline environment

The funny thing was it’s really not new. The challenge of being unique and relevant has always been at the core of effective marketing. 

What is new are the tools to guide the customer through the online environment.

In my experience marketing financial services, the challenge was that products themselves were really at parity and there was no way to differentiate with the competition as everyone sells checking, loans and investments – unless you could become the “knowledge provider”.

Example: Bank One Business Banking developed branded, relevant informational brochures on topics like:
- Keys to A Sucessful Business Plan
- The 5 Cs of Credit
- Cash Flow Fundamentals

- Making the Most of the SBA
A series of informational pieces with interactive elements (worksheets, questionnaires, agency links) were developed and delivered to other respected sources like accountants, lawyers or brokers to pass along to the end-user. It made the influencer look smart, provided the customer with relevant information and positioned the bank as a trusted source that really understood the needs of the business owner.

They were highly successful because:
1. They understood the information needs of the customer
2. The information helped the customer advance their business and although it never mentioned a product, it gave them the information they needed to make an informed, confident purchase decision.
3. It gave customers value through their social network allowing them to respond when they were ready.

Fast forward 10 years and you’ve got an online example almost verbatim at MasterCard. 

Marketers now have tools like never before but many still haven't grown into them:
With tools like Zoomerang, Twitter Search, Addictomatic there’s no excuse for any marketer not to tune in to what customers are thinking.

Customers have access to the same Internet you do, so if you’re not revealing brand new data, your job is to be the filter – to comb through all the stuff that’s out there, edit it and serve it up in a way that suits your customer.

A favorite example of mine is Magellan's Travel site that has sorted through all the health, security, weather and electrical data to help guide the customer toward the most appropriate purchase based on their travel destination.

With SEO, Twitter, Blogs and other social media good content can be found and distributed again and again – if it’s really valuable it will be.

Other good examples listed on the call include:
HomeMadeSimple.com 

BeingGirl.com
RoyalCanin 

Ironically, I don’t have an example of an advertising agency or a marketing firm demonstrating content in this way. They all toss out what they’ve done, who they are and how many awards make them great.

If you’ve seen an example, let me know.
Otherwise it's shoes for the shoemaker? 

Call Me.

Three Hot Social (Media) Spots in Mpls/St.Paul

Everybody’s learning as fast as they can. Twitter feeds us blog links, which feed us site links and more wisdom. We share with friends and co-workers, test new site offerings, gadgets and aggregators.

But there are three solid organizations in Minneapolis that provide face-to-face learning and networking and if you live here and aren’t taking advantage of them already – start now. Each has a unique format and online offerings so there are benefits to be had by taking advantage of all three. They are:

• The Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association - MIMA
• Social Media Breakfasts of Minneapolis St. Paul - smbmsp
• UnSummit 

MIMA

MIMA hosts monthly events, a website, blog and e-newsletter. They are the oldest and the largest of the three with 900 members and are very well sponsored. Because of this, their events have a more formal tone, great food, a cash bar and a higher ticket price.

This week’s event offered a very bright panel discussing Digital Reputation Management. It was well-facilitated, underscored the long term investment required, provided real-life scenarios and gave some easy action steps. It was valuable to hear these corporate executives share their stories and the wisdom learned. In the spirit of social media it felt very honest and transparent.

I would have preferred more real-time demonstrations of their recommended tools and in a perfect world, the in-person registrars could have done a better job demonstrating Reputation Management. But it’s hard to be perfect. Their next event is rationally titled Inbox Insanity and I can't wait to attend. There is also a new MIMA group on LinkedIn.

Social Media Breakfasts 

Smbmsp is next in age and size with over 360 members. Their website is very social in nature with member profiles, forums, photos and member blogs. Their events are less formal than MIMA, smaller in size and less expensive.

The last one I attended was a case study presentation of a cause effort that went viral and landed swiftly in the headlines of CNN, and over 252 other media outlets. It was a fun story, illustrated the shifting influence of blogs vs traditional media and reinforced the importance of solid writing, strong headlines, clear action steps etc.

I was struck by the open generosity of the audience during the discussion period. I have been attending business breakfasts for over 20 years and the nature of the online space is showing its impact in real life. There is less emphasis on posturing and more on sharing and ideating about how to move forward in this changing technology and dicey economy.

They aren’t as polished in their recap of past events but they excel in sharing member activity. Sign-up to become a member and attend the next event on Social Media and Job Searching.

UnSummit
UnSummit is the newest of the three having had its first event only last October. It began because the MIMA Summit was sold out and there was enough of the community left out and hungry for dialogue that they decided to go rogue.

This format offers workshops on various topics so you choose which are most relevant to you. At the October event there was even an all-day session used to design a social media strategy for the hosting establishment. Packed into the back party room, the various groups huddled together so as not to shout down their neighboring classes. It was the most informal of the three but also the most intimate and generated lots of lively discussion. They do a good job of recapping and Phil Wilson also provided a detailed wrap-up.

The UnSummit is really all about participating in the discussion. Registration is now open for the March event on Hacking the Recession and you can also post any session ideas you may have.

In this moment of our recession it is critical to be learning, connecting and generating ideas for growth. Now you can choose breakfast, lunch or dinner, whatever suits your social style.