Yesterday morning, when I was thinking about this blog, it was actually shaping up to be quite a different post. But then, the events of yesterday changed things.

Originally, I was going to write about ways to encourage your customers to participate in your brand. I thought about some brands that I happily participate in. For example, having long been a Seth Godin fan, not just reading all his books and his blog daily, but occasionally posting a quote from him on our blog or recommending a book.  I’ve joined his ‘fan club’ and received his book ‘Tribes’ before it was officially released.

There are many examples in that one brand alone of great ways to encourage participation with your brand in a positive way.

But then, yesterday. Sure, it was election day. And, I was thrilled with the outcome (yay!!!). But then, it was also the day that I had quite possibly my worst ever experience as a customer (well, as a potential customer)…

Being relatively new to the area, I took the lazy, convenient way of finding a place to board my dogs (the Petsmart across the street). I won’t bore you with the exhaustive details but it started with three phone calls to their veterinary department, Banfield, to schedule a shot. (One that they are current on for every other kennel I have talked to since, but that is another story.) They ‘lost’ my information (apparently twice because I had to fill out a form that reiterated what I had told two other employees). 

I was forced (before any vet would see them) to watch their sales video (Sure, I get advertising to a captive audience [stuck in the exam room].  But please, this was more torturous than a time share experience).  I was told that my dogs (who, did I mention are current on all of their vaccines) needed hundreds of dollars of shots that Banfield recommends, ugh. I declined the ‘recommended vaccines.’  But, it got worse (didn’t think it could, but it did). So, I left.

I can’t think of any experience that I’ve EVER had as a customer that was worse. Apparently, Banfield has a system to generate the most revenue based on annoying sales tactics (the video), deceptive tactics (pulling up a list of vaccines that are not necessary), and trying other ways to charge for services that are unneccesary. So, I will participate in their brand. I will tell every pet owner who I talk to about my experience and never, ever even shop in Petsmart, as they must see this practice as not a problem.

My point is that there are two ways that customers who will participate in your brand can participate – and there are not that many customers who will. So, you can choose.  Choose by the way you treat your customers (or mistreat them).

This summer, Hard Rock opened their first amusement theme park. There were so many things that were done right – from a ’soft’ opening to make sure everything ran smoothly to a phased approach to building and launching new rides and attractions.

So, many people were surprised that the crowds never really did materialize and that recently they had announced lay-offs and cut-backs in the operating hours.

Very few companies have the luxury of getting things 100% right in the launching of a new product or service. There are bound to be tough times and mistakes. But, the key to success is to stay in the game.

By ‘cutting losses’ by reducing the operating hours, Hard Rock Park is taking a big risk. Sure, it is expensive to keep the park open. But, by taking the ‘easy’ way out and not trying new things, it sends a very negative message.

In Howard Mann’s ‘Your Business Brickyard’, he introduces the concept of sprinting through the finish line.  Sprinters and runners are taught to envision the finish line five steps beyond where it really is so that they accelerate through the finish line. He advises that businesses should operate this way too.

More often than not, new product launches and other initiatives really don’t have the success that was hoped for or even expected. Because of this, you can’t simply execute and hope for the best. You must have a back-up plan or as Howard describes the ‘five more steps after the original finish line.’

For Hard Rock these steps could include:
Contests
An Ambassador-Loyalty Program
An Ambassador – Referral Program
Word-of-Mouth Program
Alternative Advertising Programs (Social Media)

All of which, when done correctly are highly measurable which creates the ability to test and shift spending from one non-performing initiative to a better performing one.

I really like the concept of ’sprinting through the finish line’ when applied to business because it forces you to come up with a contingency plan before you actually get into crisis/reaction mode.

So, next time you think about a product launch, a new promotion or campaign, think past the ‘just do it’ and come up with your next five steps.

JupiterResearch recently published its report, ‘Web Analytics Buyer’s Guide.’ I have to say in reading about the report I was astonished to see this finding from the Senior Analyst – “Despite some small skirmishes over capabilities like video and audio measurement, the Web analytics feature race is largely over.”

Wow. After spending the better part of the last 10 years using these tools to analyze data that shocks and saddens me. I admit that there are tools out there with an overwhelming number of features. And, I admit that the additional features add a level of complexity (and price in some cases) that make the tools almost unusable without a lot of training or experience.

But, to say that ‘the feature race is largely over’ seems to say that everything that can be measured in Web analytics is now already measured. That seems a little unrealistic, especially when Social Media and Word of Mouth campaigns are gaining traction and marketers’ dollars.

I am interested to see how the future plays out. If, in fact, the feature race is largely over it is going to become the responsibility of successful marketers to figure out not only what needs to be measured, but also figure out HOW to measure those things.

Reading Jakob Nielsen’s great article today, ‘Reduce Bounce Rates: Fight for the Second Click’ , got me thinking about delivering my first few trainings when I was with ClickTracks. The reason for this was this heading…

“Unique Visitors” Must Die

Before joining ClickTracks, I felt that Unique Visitors were a pretty important, if not the most important, stat to pay attention to. But, I soon learned the error of my thinking. First of all that metric, depending which type of reporting you are using (log files vs. java script) tends to be wildly inaccurate. (Based on IP addresses in log files and cookies in java script).

But, accuracy aside, it is an even more misleading stat, as Jakob Nielsen explains -

“Chasing higher unique-visitor counts will undermine your long-term positioning because you’ll design gimmicks rather than build features that bring people back and turn them into devotees and customers.”

The funny thing is that people don’t want to hear this. They want to believe that the Unique Visitor count, regardless of any other attribute (e.g. the fact that they leave the site immediately and never return), is the end-all, be-all metric. Countless times when reviewing the concept, ‘Don’t focus on Unique Visitors’ during the ClickTracks training sessions, I was questioned, even challenged.

If Unique Visitors are not the key metric, then what is? This is a great question and can vary from site to site. But, it all boils down to be able to segment out key groups of visitors.

Conversions – What are the business goals of your Web site? There should be more than one. Purchases are the most obvious conversion activities on an ecommerce site, but also important should be lead capture (getting someone’s email address and the permission to continue the conversation with them). Segmenting out visitors who convert can result in valuable behavior information and the ability to improve your site and increase conversions.

Return Visitors/Loyal Users – How many times do visitors return? How frequently? Following the paths of return visitors can give you great insight on the high impact sections of your site. Determining how often and how frequently they visit can give you great insight on the when you need to be updating your content and broadening your inventory.

Word of Mouth Traffic – Is online or offline conversations driving traffic to your site? It is possible to break out the traffic that likely gets to your site from word of mouth. Once the traffic gets to the site, following their path will give you very interesting insight on what people are talking about.

High Quality Traffic – Visitors who spend a significant time on your site (more than 20 seconds). Once again, breaking out this visitor group and following their paths through your site is the only way to find out if they are sticking around because they are happy and finding what they want. Or, if they are hopelessly lost and ping-ponging back and forth through the same pages on your site.

It is well worth getting ‘unstuck’ from the single-focus mentality and take a much broader look at your Web site traffic, not only to get a better understanding of the important traffic but also to be able to improve the user experience.

Day 2 of the WOMMA – WOMM-U Miami conference started off at 8am after a nice breakfast. The first presenter was Bob Pearson of Dell, who delivered an energetic presentation on what Dell has learned about word of mouth marketing so far…

Obserations:

1. The online world is going through the most significant change in history
2. The number of conversations is exploding – 2010 988 Exobytes of digital data online
3. Customers want to speak with us in their first language – only 1/3 of the conversations are in English
4. New countries have formed hat are not being treated with the full respect that their nation’s population deserves… i.e. MySpace
5. Watch out for content pushers… (traditional marketers)
6. Your new home page is cool… but do you know where it is? – Google
7. If we build it, they do not come. The traffic that matters is not abbout you. Get the right keywords.
8. Less than 1% of a person’s time online will be spent buying a product

Key Learnings and Actions from Dell

1. The most important things you can do is help customers with their technology problems
2. Blogging is global… blogging is multilingual…blogging is by a community of passion…blogging is not ‘one blog’
3. Would you rather do a focus group with 10 people or listen to 100,000 people debate ideas for a few months and ask them questions throughout the process? – Ideastorm over 12,000 ideas, with 120 ideas in action externally.
4. Customers are partners and partners join together to make a difference
5. Communities are more powerful than individuals. Communities want to help each other improve.
6. The online experience at work should be similar to the online experience at home
7. Join your customer’s communities and become part of the solution
8. You can see in real time if you are relevant to a topic or conversation
9. If you are dealing with an issue be truthful, transparent and diligent in updating your customers
10. Your customers are people not lines of business, and they can belong to many different communities.
11. Measurement requires thinking outside the box. Don’t try to fit old thinking to the new environment. Conversations and communities matter.

Following this presentation, which ran over by 10 minutes (no complaints from the audience), was a case study on Carnival Cruise Lines.  This provided a deep contrast in presentation styles and content, which means that I’m not going to even mention it beyond this paragraph.

Then it was back to the brainstorming sessions for each of the three charities from the day before.  Over lunch each of the charities presented the results from these sessions, which each showed different ways of thinking and crafting solutions for different problems and organizations.

Following the presentations, it was back to the breakout sessions.  I attended the Tools discussion, which was interesting, and like the latter ones from yesterday, would have been served better by extending the time period to an hour.

Then it was back to the final case study, and presentation given by Jen Gulvik VP of Marketing at Houlihan’s Restaurants.  She talked about how they created a community of passionate Houlifans and ambassadors to help them know what was going on in the minds of their customers.  The biggest change that the group made was when Houlihan’s discontinued the fajita.  Franchisees were happy, as it required more work to make, and corporate were completely behind the decision.  Then the community began to revolt, and they listened.  against the menu planning committee’s wishes the fajitas returned.  Since that date the fajitas have increased in popularity.  People listened to the fervent supporters who brought it back, and became interested enough to try it.  Before it was removed it was the 14th most popular item on the menu, now in some restaurants it’s challenging for first.  This truly is the power of Word of Mouth.

So ended the conference.  I would have to say that I enjoyed it, and because it was in warm climes (I hardly got to leave the hotel), it was interesting to hear viewpoints and perspectives from more traditional marketers. If I had to sum the conference up in 4 words it would be this:

Listen

Be Transparent

Participate

4 words that any person contemplating a social media or word of mouth campaign should take to heart.

The day started out with welcome and introduction to the conference, with the tagline “Join the Conference”. Word of Mouth Marketing is growing, over the last 5 years WOM has grown 30% annually, to end up at 2007 with a $1 billion spend. Over the next 5 years the annual growth is expected to exceed 30% annually, reaching an annual spend of $4 billion by 2011.

This was swiftly followed by a keynote speech from Joseph Jaffe, CEO & Chief Interrupter of Crayon – author of “Join the Conversation” (one of two free books handed out in the nifty little conference backpack). He uses his title as a conversation starter. “Most of advertising is criminal for lies and misrepresentation” – i.e. smoking. Word of Mouth has been around since we could talk, but the recent growth has been amazing. Use anything to start a conversation. Marketing can be a conversation, in and of itself. It is no longer a spectator sport, you have to participate.

1. Listen
2. Participate
3. Join
4. Catalyze
5. Start talking

How do you seed a new idea to a skeptical and marketing weary universe of influencers? Not all influencers are necessarily original participants. Word of mouth is not bought it is earned.

Don’t

1. Lie and fake it
2. Manipulate the conversation
3. Try to control the conversation – T-mobile sued engadget over their use of the color magenta…
4. Dominate the conversation
5. avoid the conversation

Next up was Jeffrey Graham of the New York Times, whose main point of with the amount spent on Word of Mouth Marketing compared to other forms, WOMM forms the butt crack of advertising.

You can find my writeup of this session over at Search Marketing Gurus.

Following on from this was the first of the breakout sessions. An interesting concept, 12 tables were set up for 6 different topics, with specialists at each table. As each person walked in they were given a starting table, and a suggested route. So I started over at the basic social media table, and headed over to the advanced social media table after 1/2 hour. I didn’t find that these sessions worked all that well, which may have been down to either the moderators, the other participants, or just the fact that we only had 1/2 hour and up to 12 people participating at each table.

The conference didn’t even stop for lunch, once you grabbed your sandwich (assuming you weren’t a vegetarian, although to be fair an hour later they did have a vegetarian option) you went back to the main conference room for a presentation by Judy Stonefield of OPI cosmetics and Fiona Petruiski of SheSpeaks. They discussed how SheSpeaks has a network of 50,000 women that they use as advocates and testing grounds for various products and services, and created a private social network for OPI. On average each member of the network told 10 friends about the OPI product, each of those friends told 4 friends on average, giving a reach of 40 people per network member.

After lunch the interactive case study section of the program began. 3 different nonprofits presented their organizations, and discussed their challenges and goals, each member of the audience then selected one of the nonprofits to help by walking into the room for that particular nonprofit. I went into the room for The Wilderness Society where we brainstormed for the next hour.

Following that we had the last keynote of the day from Carla Hendra of Ogilvy.  She went through a number of case studies, which you can read about over on Search Marketing Gurus, but the big takeaways were the same concepts that have been constantly hammered in throughout the conference.

1. Listen
2. Be transparent
3. Participate

After that we finished up by heading out for more of the breakout sessions. This time it seemed that people had decided to either take advantage of the Miami sun, and headed out to the beaches or pools, as only 6 of the tables were filled. This time I hit the “Buy, Build or Create social communities” session, and the “Reputation Management in Social Communities” session. I have to say that these sessions worked a lot better, and actually left me wishing that both had been longer than 30 minutes, again it could have been the moderators, the rest of the crowd at the table, or maybe just the fact that we’d gone through concept earlier that day and were more used to it.

Thus ended day one of the Womma Wommu conference, more tomorrow.