Have you heard about Greg Verdino’s new book, microMARKETING? The insights found inside are quite intriguing especially if you are:  1) trying to market your products and services in a cost-effective manner—and in today’s economy who isn’t? 2) enhancing your marketing, communications or customer service by implementing social media as part of your business culture; and 3) working to build one-on-one relationships with your customers and prospects. 

Given that these are things Serengeti helps our clients with, I was excited to get a peak into Greg’s thoughts on how harnessing social media and thinking and acting small is absolutely a proven and successful mindset.

While micromarketing is not a new concept (it’s been around since the late 80s), social media and social technology certainly enhance the “micro-ness” of how organizations can, and should, connect with their customers, clients, stakeholders, etc. today. With this mindset, Greg explores micromarketing for a new age through three key trends: 

• Microcultures;
• Microcontent; and
• Micromavens.

Think Small 

Repeat after me: microcultures, microcontent, micromavens. All are the very opposite of MASS. Marketers are taught, practice and hedge their marketing budgets on mass. You know exactly what I mean… How many people can we get into that lead pipeline? How many names can we buy for our direct mail or email marketing campaign? How many thousands of people surfed our website this month? The more, the better, the happier the sales and marketing management team will be! Right? 

Wrong. 

Unfortunately, there are situations where mass marketing just doesn’t work—and is quite expensive to boot! All of those names you cram into your lead generation machine, well they typically aren’t qualified and require a lot of nurturing (Read: coercion). What does this mean for your business? Flipping that lead funnel might just work better for you…less in, more out. 

Act Small

Wouldn’t it be much, much better to have people willingly lining up to knock on your door because they want to buy your product or service or donate to your cause? And how great would it be to have people out there evangelizing your brands to their entire network because they feel so strongly connected to them? After all, who doesn’t want BIG results?

So then, how can you start acting small?  You’re first priority is going to definitely include changing your marketing mindset. This can be a challenge, especially when marketers count on mass! Second, you’ll need to shift your thinking by asking “How can we… 

1. Resonate with masses of communicators;
2. Tap into pass-along power and peer-to-peer potential of the network effect;
3. Deliver mutual value through two-way interactions;
4. Make a commitment to engage people directly in real time;
5. Build meaningful relationships;
6. Earn attention; and
7. Have success through lots and lots of small things?”

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus… and he is bringing you customers and revenue!  

From large (Ford, Best Buy and Samsung) to small (author J.C. Hutchins and makeup artist Lauren Luke), Greg dives into how companies and professionals have used micromarketing to connect with their customers and grow their business by thinking and acting small. And Greg’s promise to help you become a micromarketer is as solid as the worksheet (40 Questions!) at the end of the book. 

What are you waiting for? It is a small world after all. 

[Disclosure: Greg Verdino is a friend, but I purchased this book and read it with only the scrutiny a traditional marketer turned micromarketer and Client Services Director could. Great job Greg!]

Image: Greg’s Website

This post is part of a series entitled The Four Pillars of Social Media. For this post we will be focusing on the third pillar: Engagement. Our other engagement topics, as part of this series, included:  

• Letting Go Of Your Ego
• Using Content To Extend Your Reach Through Social Media
• You Don’t Always Have the Best Ideas

Integrating Social Media Engagement Across the Marketing Mix 

Often when you hear about social media, it’s from a marketing communications perspective. That’s where most strategies start… “Are you listening, engaging, sharing” and all of the other buzz words that are floating around these days. We can and should also talk about social media (the concept and the tools) from an overall business perspective. Meaning, how is social media not only affecting our communications with customers, prospects, employees, stakeholders, shareholders, etc., but how is it affecting or impacting our business operations. 

The notion of “if we build it, they will come” is fraught with idealism that unfortunately causes a lot of businesses to fail in their efforts, especially when it comes to product/service development. No amount of listening, engaging or sharing will have people banging down your doors to buy if there isn’t a want or need for your product/service. 

I know what you’re thinking… Apple does this all the time, just look at the iPod, iPhone or iPad! Nope. Apple is just innovating and capitalizing on technologies and wants/needs people already had. But, starting from scratch to create a new want/need is very difficult. And its product/service development that usually starts the cogs of the marketing mix. 

Social media has given customers the means to provide feedback on products/services they’d like, where they want to buy them, how much they are willing to pay and how they want to hear from you or where they’d like to talk about you.

Let’s check out some examples of how social media engagement  is changing the marketing mix and business operations. 

Product:
Have you ever heard of Fiskars? They make things that cut other things. Doesn’t sound like you could do much socially with things like scissors, right? Wrong. Fiskars reached out to their loyal customers to help create a community called “Fiskateers.” I won’t get into all of the details here, because you can read that story here, here and here. What’s most interesting is that Fiskars is now tapping into the Fiskateers for product development. Yes, you heard that correctly… The Fiskateers have a hand in creating new products! Apparently, engineers who doubted the community renamed themselves “Fiskaneers.” If you are a “social” company or considering social media, how would you handle product development insights? Would you be open and flexible to suggestions or would you hang out a “this is our turf” sign?

If you think that this type of social media engagement only works in the B2C space, I urge you to check out IBM’s product development story. It’s another great example of customers wanting to be involved and creating a service that they want to buy!

Price:
Most business professionals and MBAs know how to determine price in their sleep. The problem is the methods learned are inside-out focused. In today’s world we need to think about price from the perspective of the customer or prospect—how much are they willing to pay for your product or service (you might even want to know this before product/service development!). That mindset causes issues, doesn’t it? What if the price people are willing to pay is below your costs, etc. One example of social media providing insights on pricing that lead to a new service is Charles Schwab. Charles Schwab took the approach to listen to a community of Gen X non-customers and based on the feedback, they lowered their account minimums to $1,000 (among other changes), resulting in a 32% growth of Gen X customers.

Place (Distribution) & Promotion:
It’s no secret that the beer industry has always been social and that’s especially true for the microbrewing industry. Microbrews have always relied on word of mouth for their success and social media just enhances that WOM. An example of how social media has changed one brewery’s distribution and promotional efforts is Victory Brewing Company. Of course, Victory has a Twitter account, Facebook Fan Page, and YouTube channel, but their marketing efforts also have to do with all of the ‘social information’ they collect—that’s what makes the real difference. In short, all of this data helps them to determine the next markets for their distribution efforts. Where should they be selling Victory based on social demand. 

And social media isn’t just helping with distribution efforts, but also promotional efforts too. According to Dave Speers, Victory’s marketing guru, Foursquare is one tool that has “unlocked” (pardon the pun), insights into their customers. Victory has teamed up with the Foursquare developers to launch the very first ‘Mayor promo’ via Foursquare. What does this mean for Victory customers? Well, if they grab the mayor badge for Victory upon check in at the Victory Brew Pub in Downingtown, they are treated with a special Mayor Hat, sash and two beer tickets per visit to give away to anyone at the pub. These efforts to reward customers came as a direct response to patterns and trends recognized in social media.

(A special thanks to Dave Speers for sharing some insights into Victory’s marketing mix efforts!)

So, there you have it…three examples of how social media engagement is changing business operations as we know them (and are comfortable with!) today.

How has social media engagement changed your marketing mix?

[Image Sources: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4]

This post is part of a series entitled The Four Pillars of Social Media. For this post we will be focusing on the second pillar: Strategy. Our other strategy topics, as part of this series, included:  

• Is Your Social Media Strategy Flexible?
• Setting Goals for Your Overall Social Media Strategy 

Shiny Object Syndrome or Strong Strategy?  

strat·e·gy: noun. A:  A careful plan or method; B: The art of devising or employing plans toward a goal. 

As social media becomes more mainstream from a business perspective it is really important to understand that it is not another tactic or channel for marketers or businesses to add to their ‘to do’ list. That mindset can lead to “shiny object syndrome” where social media tools are selected and used just because they are perceived as the hip thing to do, they are everywhere, or competition is using them. Shiny object syndrome is the worst beacon of light to lead an organization as they consider social media engagement. That glimmer won’t be a guide, but a detrimental side effect leading to temporary blindness which will leave an organization in the dark.    

Social media isn’t solely about tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogging, forums, etc. Social media tools provide a conduit for people to connect. And it’s those connections—not the tools— that lead to business success.   

So what’s the key to social media strategy success? Purpose and Planning. 

Success comes from connecting with people in a purposeful manner. And it’s that purpose that should drive your plan and strategies so that they ultimately achieve your business goals. Otherwise, you are at risk to waste precious resources (time and money being two of the largest).  However, and it’s a BIG however, it’s important that an organization understand that purpose is a two-way street. It’s not only what you you’re purpose for engagement is, but more importantly, why people want to connect with YOU. 

As Nan Dawkins, Serengeti Communications’ CEO, often says “Tactics without strategy is like doing nothing at all.” It’s safe to add that “A strategy without goals and measurable objectives is also like doing nothing at all.” From these perspectives, it’s really important for all of the parts of a plan for social media engagement to work together like a set of well-oiled cogs. If one cog is weak, it affects the entire operation. 

Determining Purpose

What is the purpose for engaging in social media? Is there a business requirement? Are customers and prospects (or target publics/audience) using social media to try to communicate or search for product/service information? Are people using social channels as a way to try and communicate with the organization? 

Whatever the reason, it’s important to benchmark where an organization is within the ‘social realm’ prior to planning. One way to determine and set a benchmark is to perform audience research.  Audience research can shed a light on things like: 

• Where people are talking
• What they are talking about
• Who they are talking to
• What the competition is doing
• What needs/wants are met or unmet
• What are the rules of engagement 

 Steps to Writing a Successful Plan

There is no doubt about it…writing a solid plan is hard work that takes time, effort and often sweat and stress. But without one you will be aimless in your purpose and intentions. Your planning efforts will be time and effort well spent, promise! As well, all of the team players will know exactly, without a doubt, the goal they are aiming for.

1. Goal
Every plan should have a goal for what is trying to be achieved with social media (or even marketing, communications, business in general). For example, “to increase communication” or “to increase sales” or “to decrease customer service expenditures.” Whatever the case, there should only be one goal per plan. If you find yourself saying ‘and’ in your goal, that’s an indication that you’ll need two plans because all objectives, strategies and tactics need to focus on achieving one goal at a time.

2. Objectives
This is the part of the plan where an organization determines the specific aspects of the situation and how to address them in a manner that supports the goal. To be measurable, objectives must have four (4) key parts:

•  A specific desire communication or behavioral effect;
• A designated public/target audience among whom the effect is to be achieved;
• The expected level of attainment (percentage of change, increase, decrease, etc.) or accomplishment; and
• The timeframe in which those attainments are to occur

For example: To use social media channels to communicate new positions and engage with prospects in a manner that helps recruit 15 new engineers by September 30, 2010.

This example is totally measurable!

Objectives come in three flavors: Output, Outtake or Outcome.

• Output objectives address the items to be produced. If your objective is to set up a social media community on Ning by a certain date, targeting a specific group of people and getting 100 people to join, the community setup is the “output.”
• Outtake objectives address the messages, perceptions and understandings the audience will take away from your efforts. For example, did the target audience understand and comprehend your message or did your plan change their perceptions to positive? (Outtakes are based on the outputs).
• Outcome objectives show the quantifiable changes in attitudes, opinions or behaviors. A great example is to gauge a change in sentiment from negative to neutral or neutral to positive. Or, based on our objective example above… 100 new people were hired. Outcomes can be one of the most important objectives.

NOTE: A plan can have multiple objectives to help meet a goal.

3. Strategy
Strategy is the heart of the plan. Strategies are the overall guide or road map for meeting measurable objectives and ultimately the goal. Strategies should include each tool needed to achieve the objectives.

For example (based on our objective): Establish social media channels for the HR department. Train five key HR employees on how to use social media channels for communication. Share all new job postings on social media channels weekly. Engage in daily conversation with potential candidates. Report weekly on key performance indicators.

NOTE: Each objective can have more than one strategy.

4. Tactics
Selecting tactics that help achieve the strategy (or strategies) is exactly how an organization avoids shiny object syndrome! The key to on-going measurement is to make sure that your tactics are measurable too.

For example (based on our strategy):

• Setup Twitter accounts for Key HR Personnel (@Jane_XYZ Company)
• Setup a Facebook Fan Page Dedicated to Careers
• Work with Marketing to include Blog Posts from HR on Corporate Blog
• Etc.

Here’s what a plan outline would look like:

• Goal
  • Objective 1
    • Strategy 1
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2
    • Strategy 2
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2
  • Objective 2
    • Strategy 1
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2
    • Strategy 2
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2  

Wash, Rinse and Repeat 

Just know that a smart strategy isn’t a “set it and forget it” (thank you Ron Popeil!) thing. A plan needs to be fluid and flexible and if it isn’t work, STOP and re-plan. The notion that a planned strategy will expose weaknesses within an organization shouldn’t be perceived as a negative, but as a positive. Because at the end of the day, you’re customers don’t care about internal silos, politics or weaknesses. They only care about working with an organization that is willing to be a partner in solving their challenges with great products and services. A plan—or ten (yes, it’s normal to have more than one plan at a time!)—should reflect that.

[Image Sources: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4]

This post is part of a series entitled The Four Pillars of Social Media. For this post we will be focusing on the first pillar: Research. Our other research topics, as part of this series, included:  

• Human Analysis in Social Media Monitoring: 5 Simple Steps to Navigate a Sea of Records
• Buzz Monitoring Tools Can’t Tell You Everything

How Audience Research Can Help You with Your Traditional Marketing Efforts

As traditional marketers, we have years of experience understanding our markets, what products and services they need/want, how to communicate best with them, and how they regard our brands, right? 

Well, maybe not… 

We have often relied on marketing research (primary or secondary), sales team feedback, customer satisfaction surveys, etc. to provide insights into those areas. The issue with most of those forms of feedback is that they tend to provide the answers we want to hear or find necessary to meet our internal business goals (either as an organization or a professional). 

Audience research, on the other hand, uncovers specifically how markets use products and services, speak about them, form communities, etc. It’s like watching a pride of lions in their natural habitat. Regardless if it’s a B2B or B2C market, when we take the time to watch people in their natural – or comfortable – habitat, we will see their true behavior and opinions surface. If you haven’t done audience research, it can be quite eye-opening. But more importantly, it can’t be fabricated. As an organization it’s your choice to ignore it (at your peril, potentially) or to embrace what’s really going on in the market. 

So how can audience research help traditional marketing efforts? 

Products/Services: If we build it, they will come… Not always. And more often “not” is the outcome (unless, of course, you are Apple). Many times startup companies fail or new products or services fail because they are built from the internal premise that people actually want to buy your product or service. And throwing your marketing communications budget at it isn’t going to help move the buying needle. Why not start with your customers and prospects and identify what their needs/wants actually are? If you aren’t a ‘social’ company, audience research is one way to tap into what’s being said online while standing on the sidelines. If you are a social company, why not just simply ask and then collect the data that the audience shares? 

Communication: There is large misperception in marketing that people respond specifically to tactics (i.e.  ads, direct mail, messaging, emails, etc.). That is not the case. People respond only when they have a brand relationship (see below). When there is a brand relationship, people are open and receptive to receiving your message. Your task is to make sure you send the right message, at the right time, in the right format. Audience research can help you to determine receptivity levels. 

Branding: While organizations do control their brand identity and messaging, what they don’t control are the relationships that people form with brands. Are you aware of how people (customers, prospects, clients, employees, stakeholders, shareholders, etc.) see and talk about your brand? Do you know what the sentiment (positive, neutral, negative) levels are for your brand? You might just be surprised! The  goal of using audience research is to understand how people perceive your brand(s), to take that feedback internally and to adjust your branding efforts accordingly.

What would you add to the list? How have you used audience research in your marketing efforts?

[Image: BG-Hotel International]

Market segmentation as you know it has become more complicated today than ever before. Capturing data in CRM systems, doing primary research, etc. all help, but the ways of segmenting we’ve learned don’t allow you to see your customers in their natural space. Sure, sales, marketing and customer service teams capture a lot of information, but is it insightful? Is it useful in understanding the segment? Or is it just what ‘they heard’ and made a note of? 

There is a lot of hype around social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., but the fact remains that social media (as a concept) is the first time that organizations have ever been able to see, listen to and get to know their customers in public spaces. Social interactions tend to be natural and not forced, which often leads to deeper insights.

Let’s look at all of the “-graphics” to get a better understanding of segmentation and how segmentation has changed. 

Demographics & Firmographics

Ah, demographics and firmographics…the marketers tried and true methods of slicing and dicing their markets. We know them well, don’t we?! They were drilled into our heads as marketing majors and have stuck with us through the years as the best practice for market segmentation.

But the days of mass marketing have come to an end and it doesn’t make sense to segment markets only to treat them as if they all live, think and buy the same way.

As you know, demographics allow B2C marketers divvy up their markets by size, age, income, education, ethnicity, etc. and firmographics allow B2B marketers to manage their markets based on employee size, revenue size, industry, number of locations, etc.

Does looking at someone’s income really provide an indication of how, where, when or why they part with their paycheck? Does knowing a business buyer’s revenue size tell you exactly how they manage their budgets or what types but products/services are purchased? No and no. Demographics and firmographics truly leave marketers empty handed when trying to get a deep understanding of markets.

So what’s a marketer to do in order to get deeper insights into their market in order to segment them properly? If demographics and firmographics are all you are using, consider adding psychographics, sociographics and ethnographics to the mix.

Psychographics

Want to know what your customers’ values, attitudes and lifestyles (VALs) are? Then psychographics should be a part of your segmentation mix. While psychographics have been around for quite some time, they often aren’t used to their full potential. While the VALs segmentation seems strongly linked to B2C marketing, it’s important for B2B marketers need to understand is that just because someone is buying in a business situation it doesn’t mean that they don’t have certain attitudes or values when it comes to products and services (i.e. “I want the best bang for my budget!”). It is smart and safe to assume that many consumers carry their VALs with them into the office. But, is psychographics even enough to really know your customers?

Sociographics

If you are looking for the ability to connect with your customers at a level much deeper than demographics, firmographics or psychographics, consider sociographics. Sociographics allow marketers to relate to customers as individuals. Remember one-to-one marketing of yesteryear? It was a great concept and made CRM systems very popular. But today, social media plays an important concept in marketing. By social media, I don’t mean using tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums, communities, etc. but the two-way conversations these tools allow for. As you get to know customers online, you’ll be able to determine their individual values, attitudes, friends, hobbies, passions, who influences them and more. Essentially, sociographics allow you to discover what makes your customers really tick.

[Image: Stefano Maggi]

Ethnographics

What is ethnography? Basically, it’s about understanding your market’s everyday life where they live it and from an insider’s point of view. Meaning, you understand the market because you view them in their natural settings. Take for example, Graco’s marketing and social media team A lot of them are moms and as such they can relate and market to moms because they understand the needs/wants moms have. Social media, again, is one way to understand the common values, lifestyles, hobbies, values, needs, etc. that drive people to join communities and forums of like interests. Typically these types of online groups have their own culture, speak in terms that are unique to the group, and they often help or influence each other to make purchasing decisions. Relating to your market in this manner allows you to seamlessly blend in with it. 

[Image: Gina Zacharias]

What’s The Answer?

Marketers have more tools than ever at their disposal these days. Between CRM systems and social media monitoring tools, marketers can gain a lot of insights into their markets. With social media being still so new for many organizations, it will take time to truly understand the shift from demographics and firmographics to sociographics and ethnographics. The key here is to understand that it will take a lot of time, roll-up-the-sleeves hard work, patience, strategic savvy and management. You can’t buy a list that tells you this data and you surely should just jump off the plank. Your starting point should be audience research analysis and training on how to properly engage customers in their surroundings. Once you have that down, the next steps will be finding tools and determining a strategy to pull it all together in a manner that provides a valid return.

Your thoughts? How has social media affected how you do market segmentation for your B2C or B2B customers?

Over at eMarketer they have an interview with Michael Donnelly, Group Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing for Coca-Cola.

Two particular things struck me as interesting:

First, Donnelly says, “I recently completed an analysis of the top five global brands and it showed that they’re primarily talking about themselves, while we’re primarily enabling people to talk about our brand.”

As Donnelly says, talking about themselves is working for some of those brands, but his is a much different, and much riskier option. It gives the detractors a place to vent their hatred, promote their own stuff, or place your brand name next to curse words on your home page like the skittles twitter home page debacle (3rd section) back in March. But on the flip side, if you approach it properly you can cultivate a devoted, authentic following that loves your product, tells everyone else about it, and, most importantly, are believed. This can be a difficult environment to set up though as a fully successful campaign requires steady navigation through the rough waters and a captain who’s in sync with his/her crew.

Coke’s latest foray is a fascinating, if not fairly self-serving, campaign.  It’s called the Expedition 206 and will send three user chosen Happiness Ambassadors around the globe into the 206 “countries” (The United States, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and even Atlanta, GA are all separate “countries”) where Coke operates, looking for what makes people happy. The concept is a novel one, but the nomenclature and the locations make me feel that these “Happiness Ambassadors” won’t be much more than globe trotting corporate shills.

**Begin Rant** An ambassador represents the ideals and culture of their native country, right? So a Happiness Ambassador has theoretically already found the answer to what makes people happy and it ain’t Pepsi. The journey can then only be to take a picture of people being made “happy.”  And if Coke really cared about the question why not send them to parts of the world that Coke doesn’t operate in? Why pay to send these people around the world in the first place unless you’re doing it for one giant publicity stunt?!? Oh, wait… I get it…  **End Rant**

Second, he talks about trying to bring together all of the different social channels, “It’s conceivable that people use YouTube for their videos and Flickr for their photos and Facebook for their social networking. We are trying to figure out how we tie all that together.”

Having everything in one location would make it easier to better quantify and analyze what they have, but it’s also interesting that an outside company, particularly one the size of Coke is interested in bringing all of those diverse channels together into a single location.

I wonder if this sort of desire from large companies will lead to a comprehensive dashboard or more of an aggregation approach (pulls together content rather than info), either internally within a company or as a separate service with a common login etc. Facebook already allows for much of the user functionality, but being a closed network it cannot provide everything YouTube and Flickr does. Could Facebook’s increasing encroachment on making user data publicly available be a step in this direction, to attempt to provide the best of both worlds: for users a one stop sharing platform and for marketers/advertisers a one stop selling platform? Or will the populace resist, wanting instead to keep their digital life compartmentalized and using a service like OpenID to ease the login load?

In the September 2009 issue of Serengeti’s Newsletter, Nan Dawkins discussed some of Serengeti’s social media offerings and outlined 5 Warning Signs That Your Agency Lacks Social Media Expertise.  If you missed the newsletter and would like to hear her words of wisdom you can click on the giraffe in the top left corner or go directly to our newsletter sign up page.  (I’ll send out a “catch up” newsletter to everyone who signs up by COB Monday Sept. 14th).

If you haven’t caught Li Evans post on Understanding Social Media Communities over at Search Engine Watch.  She’s got some great thoughts on how marketers should (and shouldn’t) approach online communities.

Serengeti Communications is hosting a dinner featuring Charlene Li as the guest speaker during SES San Jose this year and you can have an opportunity to win 1 of 2 seats we are giving away for the dinner.

What’s the catch?

Well, we’re looking for two companies who manage the most vendors to help them get their online marketing strategies accomplished.  So if you have one company to do your PPC, another for SEO, someone else to handle your online PR and yet another company to do Social Media or Analytics, we want to hear from you!  The form is really simple to fill out, we just want to know how many vendors you work with and for what (not who they are).  We’re curious as to the average number of vendors that one company has to deal with to handle their online marketing initiatives.

The two companies with the most vendors will be our winners.  If there are several companies who have the same number, we’ll put them into a fishbowl and have a drawing.  We’ll be announcing the winners on Friday August 7th, so spread the word!  If you are coming to San Jose for Search Engine Strategies or even live in the area and run your business from around San Jose, let us know about how you manage your online marketing strategies!

Win A Seat at a Private Dinner Featuring Charlene Li

Check out Li Evan’s post on Customer Service in Social Media over at Search Engine Watch.