Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
The American Marketing Association's Mplanet conference is coming up at the end of this month, January 26-28th, in my backyard (Orlando). I attended the first version in 2006, yes that's right three years ago.
It's actually an interesting concept, the three year gap ensures that the content is fresh and not simply a rehash of last year....after all much can happen in three years :-)
I'm honored once again to be one of the invited bloggers to help cover the event along with Toby Bloomberg and Peter Kim. Over the next few weeks I'll be posting a bit more about some of the trends/issues related to the event here, and on the Mplanet blog.
Before I was crucified by the audience, I quickly said it still does, but perhaps not as much.
Why? I threw out the concept last week, asking, "when so much of a brand's content is consumed via RSS, Facebook, Twitter...does design matter?"
Sure you can design a good looking blog, but if a large percentage of the readers use an RSS reader, does the design matter? Also, what is going to keep you coming back to a corporate blog? It's the content, not the design.
Many organizations are realizing the interactions they have with customers on sites like Twitter and Facebook are very rewarding, however you have very limited design flexibility on those sites. In the case of Twitter you can tweak some of the page settings, but your primary brand-design element is a 48 x 48 pixel avatar.
We recently dealt with a client that had a logo that didn't shrink well, that is when it was 48 x 48 you couldn't really tell what it was. It sounds funny, but things like that are now a design consideration. I remember a while back when a brand was always worried about how a color logo would transition to black & white for print purposes, now it's shrinkage :-)
In a post over on the Mplanet blog I touch on some of these same subjects. However one point I made was that perhaps in this new world of distributed content that small branding you can supply (even if it's 48 x 48) might help you stand out in the crowd. Those that are customers or evangelists can look for that 'official' seal.
As I said at the Design Summit, I don't have the easy answer. But, it's an interesting issue that I think that every organization that engages in social media will have to deal with.
Where to start? Perhaps late, late in the sense that the planning for this year's BlogOrlando started much later than previous events. I was even concerned that we couldn't pull it off. But thanks to some help from some great folks like Chris, Rob, Danny, Ryan and yes you Alex.....we did it. Our tracks grew from four to five, our registrations grew and so did the turnout. A big thanks to all our sponsors, especially Ideablob and Voce :-)
In the end 238 of us showed up at Rollins College this past Saturday to learn from each other. As my colleague Mike Manuel said, "Leave your brand at the door, bring your brain." What makes this event so different? Spike from Brains on Fire probably put is best:
I’ve never been to a free conference before. And the difference of engagement levels between a free conference and a fee-based one is night and day. I guess it might be because everybody that’s there WANTS to be there. They CHOSE to go. They CHOSE to give up a Saturday and engage other passionate people. I’m afraid most conferences I go to are full of people that have been sent there from their company. They’d rather be checking emails or anywhere else. But it’s part of their job description or a requirement. The result is sometimes a very low engagement level.
BlogOrlando was the exact opposite.
Thanks Spike. Also, a big thanks to all the session leaders. Each of you contributed something, and I hope many of you learned something from your audience as well.
Jake McKee kicked us off with a story about how LEGO learned to listen to its fans and became better for it. Yes it was a bit marketing/communication focused, but it's also part community, and well it's LEGO.....geeks love LEGO. Even the non-marketing types learned something. From there it was off to the breakout tracks. Just about every session I checked in on was packed.
Room size is always the big debate. Last year we had a few rooms that were packed to the gills, but sometimes those close quarters breed better, more lively discussions. While I like the increase in attendance, it's the smaller discussions that are sometimes the best. I never want to get away from this format. That's one of the reasons we split into five tracks, I wanted to keep the groups smaller.
It was also important to split tech into two sides, basic and advanced. If you keep having the same conversations year-after-year you end up alienating the veteran attendees, you need to give them something new. However, you still need the core stuff for the newbies. Striking that balance is the key.
Highlights for me were the sessions professionalism/identity sessions by Amber Rhea and Jake McKee. I also heard great things about Alex Hillman's session as well as Spike's session on WOM and Geno's session on movements. There was a reason I invited Geno and Spike, they're great guys who do great work. I hope everyone who attended their sessions agree.
Sadly I missed the Orlando Scene session, but thanks to Ted and Andrew from IZEA there are Ustream archives of that session as well as many others.
For most of the day I ran around making sure everything was running smoothly. Luckily we had no major wifi issues, thanks to Mike from Rollins IT, who many of you met. During my downtime I would check out the ongoing Twitter-stream and appreciated all the discussion and positive comments the event was receiving. Today lookingoveralltherecaps, it'smuchofthesame...thanks.
We ended the day with Erik Hersman. I picked Erik for some specific reasons, one he's from Orlando, but most importantly because the work he's doing spans so much of the discussions of the day. As I said when introducing him....most of us were at the event for different reason, pr/marketing, journalism, personal expressions, business, etc. A project like Ushahidi makes all our 'personal' and 'business' needs seem trite.
I hope at the end of the day everybody that attended learned something and made some new friends.
Will we be back next year? We'll see, give me a few weeks to rest and catch-up with my work-life and family-life.
On Friday I'll be flying to Atlanta, and then making the quick drive to Athens, GA for the UGA Connect conference. I attended the inaugural event in 2007 and enjoyed the mix of familiar colleagues and students eager to learn.
We're two weeks away from BlogOrlando 2008 and things are shaping up nicely. Our schedule and session list are set, t-shirts are about to be ordered and the happy-hour plans are in place. There is still a bunch of behind-the-scenes work going on though....it's going to be a fun two weeks.
The gist is, in a social media world where a large percentage of your customers/fans consume your content via RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or some other third-party location how can you maintain a brand experience, if at all....and does it matter?
One unique thing the conference organizers have done is print Moo cards for the speakers. As you can see the cards promote the event. They also threw in one of the new Moo card holders. Nice touch.
I'm sad to be missing WordCamp this year, but we have a work retreat in Tahoe and then I have to get home for some family fun. Luckily, some of the crew from cnp_studiowill be there. I'll look to Sean to take over the mantle of event photographer :-)
Heading out in a little bit for a beach weekend in Hilton Head, but next week I'm off to California, specifically Palo Alto and San Francisco. Next weekend brings BlogHer and my third visit to this great event. Looking forward to catching up with plenty of friends.
The dates for the 2008 edition of BlogOrlando have been set, Sept 25-27th. Of course the big change is the main event is moving to a Saturday.
In the past I always debated about the Friday/Saturday thing, but this year we have some external forces....mainly the venue....we're just too big :-) In order to accommodate close to 300 people (like we had last year) we need to hold the event on Saturday.
Registration will be open shortly and we'll start to fill in the session leaders and schedule as well.
As I referenced in my previous post there will an invite only event on Thursday the 25th. The main event will kick-off Friday night with a reception and the full un-con and happy hour on Saturday.
If you're traveling in, then you can look to arrive on Friday and head back out on Sunday.
Of course we're always looking for sponsors to keep the event FREE. If you're interested let me know.
On Friday I'll be attending/MC'ing BlogPotomac in the DC area. This latest un-conference is being organized by Geoff Livingston with some assistance from Debbie Weil. I'm glad to say many of the session leaders are longtime friends and colleagues and I look forward to the discussions.
I feel flattered that the event has followed the BlogOrlando model I started a few years ago. If I have my facts right I think Geoff returned from BlogOrlando this past year and said, "Let's do this in DC!"
I'll be heading to the DC area on Thursday for BlogPotomac on Friday. Anybody up for a photowalk on Thursday afternoon in DC or at the Air & Space Museum near Dulles?
After a great day one, and a very 'Miami' reception last night, day two kicked off with a keynote from Bob Pearson, VP of Communities and Conversations, Dell.
The Dell Hell/Turnaround story is often cited at events and this one has been no exception. Bob likes to think that Dell has just finished Chapter 1. Of course in that chapter there were some things that Dell did wrong, but they've made some significant strides to fix things.
A few key points: First, obviously, we're in the most significant period of change online.
Second, the number of conversation and data online is growing exponentially.
Third, customers want to speak with us in their language. English only reaches 1/3 of the world on a good day
Fourth, new countries have formed that are not being treated with the full respect they deserve. If you look at data, if MySpace was a country, it would be the 11th largest in the world.
Fifth, watch out for the content pushers. They want to create stuff and them dump it. People are looking for conversations and relevance.
Leaders will enter and become relevant in conversations every day in every language all around the world about their company and product.
Six, your new home page is Google. The content and experience is being driven by the customer. What are they defining about you?
Seventh, if you build it they may not come. The traffic that matters is not about you. The search action is not brands, it's broader topics.
Eighth, less than 1% of a person's time online is spent buying product. The majority of the people visiting your site are looking for something else, what are you providing them?
What were Dell's key learnings?
1. The most important thing we do is help customers with their technology problems. Dell has created blog response/support teams that go out and help customers with their problems. Only later did they launch their own blog.
2. Blogging is global, blogging multi-lingual, blogging is 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 ad ask them questions through the process? This lead to Idea Storm. Idea Storm has generated 12,000 ideas, 120 of which are in action externally.
4. Customers are partners. Dell recently launched ReGeneration, a blog about their customers. Customers are driving it.
5. Communities are more powerful than individuals, communities want to help each other improve. Whatever we can do to empower our customers and communities, benefits everyone.
6. The online experience at work should be simulate to the experience at home. At Dell they gave all their employees complete access to the web, how many large companies do that?
7. Join your customers communities and become part of the solution. Think direct to customer Q&A. They participate in forums like Yahoo Answers.
8. You can see in real time whether or not you're relevant to the conversation. Twitter is great for this.
You begin to ask, if you are doing all of this, why do you need to use something like a press release?
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. Yes we know that, but what do your customers do? What does your customer do, when they're not your customer....i.e. their personal lives. How can you engage
11. Measurement requires thinking outside the box. Things like awareness and activities are easy to measure, but what really matters are conversations and communities.
Immediately after the opening keynote, Jeffrey Graham from the New York Times presented a case study on how the NYTimes is researching how word of mouth impacts advertising.
Jeffrey disagreed with Joesph, he thinks that WOM and traditional marketing can co-exist, that is that traditional advertising is not going away.
Jeffrey has a new title for his presentation: WOM: Marketing's Butt Crack. Good laugh.
Next up was a quick game to get things started.
First question: What are the more commonly used marketing objectives? A: Branding/Awareness B: Direct Response C: Trial Response
Second question: What variables are used most commonly in planning marketing? A: Demographics B: Contextual Relevance C: Cost
Third question: What are the most common measures of marketing effectiveness? A: Direct B: Response Branding
Fourth question: What is the most influential contact point? A: Word of Mouth
There is a big disconnect, marketers know that WOM is important, but the investment, planning and measurement still skews toward traditional media.
What are the myths around WOM?
- You can't influence it.
- You can't buy it in scale.
- You can't integrate it.
- You can't measure it.
All this results in WOM getting a very small portion of the marketing budget, hence the butt crack:
All marketing should be word of mouth, but mass communications can still influence/start. Advertising can drive brand advocacy.
Start thinking about putting word of mouth at the center of media planning.
Media planning for dummies:
- Determine the objectives and targets
- Select media channels
- Develop a short list
- Measure results
Old Way: Demographics, Psychographics, Buying Behavior. New Way: Looking at the level of conversations about brands. Why are people talking? Why not?
Old Way: Channels. New Way: Conversations by technology category.
Old Way: The Short List. New Way: Think about quality and influence of content, what is starting conversation?
The NYTimes tracks what brands their readers are talking about....wouldn't a brand want to be in front of an audience that is talking about them?
Old Way: Measurement, Clicks, Impressions. New Way: WOM.
The Holy Grail has always been directly linking marketing to sales. It's called a Holy Grail for a reason, it's difficult to find. Marketers come up with proxies to link sales to marketing.
WOM also forces us to redefine our markets, since it can easily go global via the technology channels available.
Since WOM is a key motivator, shouldn't we link WOM with marketing? That is, what level of conversation is generated by advertising? Should WOM be the ROI measure for advertising?
One of Joe's basic premises is that everything can be a conversation starter. If a book or a business card can be a conversation started, why can't a brand? However, conversation and community are much bigger than a series of tactical strategies.
What's more important impressions or relationships? What brands realize now is that a single bad relationship can have a dramatic impact, i.e. Dell Hell.
The Cluetrain said that markets are conversation, Joe thinks that marketing can be a conversation. If we as an industry don't participate, we'll be left behind.
Joe jokingly said, "God gave us two ears and one mouth, use it"
Step 1, listen. It's unacceptable that often a marketing department doesn't know what's going on. Of course part of listening is hearing and understanding.
Step 2 is response, once you listen and hear you need be responsive. People expect a response.
Step 3 is join, but more importantly, be invited to join. Brands aren't as cool and sexy as they think they are. When brands built islands on Second Life the realized that nobody wanted to come. Brands have to earn their place in the party.
Step 4, catalyze. Brands have the budget, staff and resources to help things along. Find the influencers and help them.
Joe showed some graphs of Twitter conversations related to the Oovoo brand conversation compared
Word of mouth is not bought, it is not sponsored, it is earned. At this point you can get to...
Step 5, start a conversation. You can't do this, unless you've done the first four steps.
So what shouldn't you do?
Don't fake it. Don't manipulate the conversation. Don't control the conversation. Don't dominate the conversation...we (brands) like to talk don't we?
Lastly, avoiding the conversation. Brands are very good at this. Some just don't care.
Are you in the campaign or the commitment business? Are you building relationships that will build and profit over time, or just a quick impression?
Brands need to protect and nurture the new non-traditional programs since they're helping build relationships. How much are you spending on experimentation? Marketing should be storm-chasers, delving into new territories.
Joe believes that corporations will have conversation departments by 2012. Customer service will be a major brand differentiator.
Brands will be redefined based upon on they relate and interact with their communities/customers.
I'm very sad that I'll be missing NewComm Forum this year. It's one of the events I try to go to every year. The event is always full of good friends and good content. Unfortunately I have two other speaking engagements this week so I won't be there. However, a few Voce folks will be in the house along with some clients.
I'll be watching Flickr for photos to remind me what I'm missing.
Wow, I can't believe I'm actually posting about BlogOrlando 2008, but then again it's almost April. Quite a few friends have asked, "Are you doing BlogOrlando again this year?" Yes. At least as of now I am :-)
The original concept/title for this event was: Josh is Tired of Traveling Outside of Orlando so Everybody Come Here Con or JTTOOECH-Con. I wanted to get some friends to the area to meet, but more importantly spend some down-time at the theme parks with their families.
That private gathering of friends soon expanded to a public event that eventually became the first edition of BlogOrlando. Then things expanded even more with the 2007 event with almost 300 people taking part.
For 2008 we're blending the old with the new. BlogOrlando will once again be held on a Friday in late September. The main event cost (FREE) and format will not change, and perhaps expand, but there is a twist.
Reaching back to the original concept, BlogOrlando will now feature a private invite-only event on Wednesday. Just an intimate gathering of colleagues, clients, industry leaders, etc. Perhaps a limit of 30-40 folks. The topics will focus more on things like future trends, etc. I dare say Davos-like. The catch is, if you're invited to the Wednesday event, you are required to lead a session at the Friday event.
Here is a tentative schedule:
Wednesday:
- Invite-Only Event
- Special Event/Fun Thing at Orlando Theme Park for Session Leaders
Thursday
- Special Event/Fun Thing at Orlando Theme Park for Session Leaders
- Official BlogOrlando Reception
A number of SoCon 08 attendees have found they 'met' a new friend at the event this past weekend. It seems that Jack Scherer of The Sales Group (sorry no link for you), subscribed all the attendees to his sales newsletter. Nice.
Jack, in your e-mail to me you said we recently 'met'. I'm really sorry, I don't remember meeting you. Of course it could be my bad....I did meet a bunch of new people at SoCon08 and sometimes I forget names. So....if you could refresh my memory about when we 'met' and 'talked':
1. What did we talk about?
2. During our 'meeting' what did I say that lead you to believe that I'd be interested in receiving your sales newsletter? I mean I don't remember saying, "Hey, if you have some great spam on sleazy sales tactics, I'd love to read it."
Thanks in advance for refreshing my memory.
Of course there is another explanation. We never met, and your initial sales pitch to me is based upon a lie. Great way to get new business :-)
Update: A few minutes later and a Google search for "Jack Scherer" shows this. Um...wow.
Update 2: On April 29th I received the following e-mail from Jack:
Josh,
I am responding to your blog listed on my website (www.salestalent.com) on 2/14/08.
1) I met you after your presentation at the SoCon08 at Kennesaw. We spoke about e-marketing and its application to the recruiting industry. My wife was with me and our conversation lasted about 90 seconds.
2) I was sitting in the front row of the auditorium and was introduced by a friend and a client. After that introduction, I raised my hand to speak and I mentioned that I was interested in meeting people during the conference who had recruiting techniques that were passive in their approach. I mentioned that we were in the sales recruiting and sales training business and that we were interested in other techniques for recruiting candidates, other than using Monster and Careerbuilder. I also said that we publish a monthly newsletter, Driving Profit, which I emailed to the database from the SoCon08 list.
3) As a result of my presentation, I met some very interesting people. One was an attorney who then visited us in our office. I spent two hours with him, giving him marketing ideas to help him launch his new business. There was NO fee for my service.
4) I am not a liar. Quite to the contrary. Consider the following…
a. Elected to the parish council of my church for 3 years
b. Director of a Career Ministry for the last 7 years that helps people network through our church. This ministry has helped many people in their quest to network and refine their job-seeking skills
c. I have provided numerous sales and marketing seminars for the following colleges and associations, as well as many businesses:
- University of Georgia
- Georgia Tech
- Kennesaw State University
- Furman University
- National Association of Women Business Owners
- SHRM (Society of Human Resource Mangers)
- GAPS (Georgia Association of Personnel Services)
- Georgia Society of CPAs
- TAG (Technology Association of Georgia)
d. We have received excellent reviews from these associations and organizations. For specific comments, please visit our website at www.salestalent.com
e. The newsletter that we publish was the driver for my new book “21 Laws of Sales Success” which will be published this year.
In conclusion, I do not feel that your blog is a fair portrayal of Jack Scherer and The Sales Group. I would appreciate it if you would remove this blog by April 30th. It creates a negative image of The Sales Group which has earned a fine reputation during the last 17 years in business.
I responded to Jack that I don't remember talking to him, but what concerned me was that a number of people received similar e-mails/pitches. I also said that I don't remove blog posts, but that I would be willing to post his response, which I have.
I think overall, the larger issue at hand is that he doesn't seem to feel that e-mailing all the attendees was a bad thing. I (as well as other commenters) disagree.
The first slide I showed in my mid-day recap at SoCon 08 was this photo. This was shortly after 8:00 am on Saturday, about 20 minutes before the event kicked off.
The point? At the beginning of the day, we're all equals. There are no special seats for different classes of people. We can all learn from each other.
Tomorrow at SoCon08 I'll be leading a breakout on photography and Flickr. What are your favorite things/tips about Flickr? Share them in the comments so I can work them in :-)
I head out later today for a quick trip to St. Petersburg beach...yeah it's rough, but it is work related. After that stop, I'm off to Atlanta for SoCon 08.
This is the second year for the event so it will be interesting to see the changes/expansion. I'm helping out in a number of ways.
In the morning I'll be providing a quick wrap-up of the discussions so far. In the afternoon I'll be leading two sessions. The first is a general Social Media Overview and the second is on Photography and Flickr. I'm almost to 15,000 photos on Flickr, so the plan is to upload the 15,000 shot during that session :-)
Now that Shop.org has wrapped up in Orlando I'm on my way to Savannah for BlogSavannah. I have the honor of leading the opening discussion. I had a great time at last year's event...and always love visiting Savannah. (Photo from BlogSavannah 07)
The second keynote of the morning featured Andy Nulman, President and Chief Marketing Officer, Airborne Mobile. To say Andy is enthusiastic would be an understatement. Unlike many speakers, Andy asked everybody to turn their cellphones on and up. His company is in the mobile content delivery business, a ringing cellphone is money in his pocket.
Mobile devices are everywhere, they've become a third appendage. Couple this with people's passion for shopping and you have powerful mix...but how do you use it?
The fear, from consumers, was that mobile marketing would be disruptive. If it was, the mobile marketing business would be dead.
Mobile marketing is at its core, 1 to 1 marketing. It's about building a stronger relationship. You need to allow people to opt-in, but this should not lead to opt-in overload. You want to be perceived as a dear friend....not a nudge. What would you whisper to them? What can you tell them that will make love your more?
NOW is the word and the acronym that Andy's been thinking about.
Near-by, customers need to be in your radius, close, local Only, there has to be a limit Wow, make a compelling offer
The power is getting the person when they're ready to buy. The basic building block is the text message (SMS).
Andy provided five things you can do NOW.
1 The NOW Pssst: Limited time offers, but it needs to be engaging and special. Target people near your location.
2 The Secret Sale: Things like in-store sales, or special offers. Texting to a special number will provide them a message/discount/coupon. It's completely opt-in. No paper costs.
3 The In-Store Experience: Give the customer control of what they want. Give them additional information, the backstory on products.
It should be noted that text messages have to be short, so the message is message, no marketing speak.
4 Woot! Like Countdown: Send limited offers to opt-in customers. The idea is similar to Woot!
5 Mini WAP Sites: Basic mobile web sites that provide information about a store.
What are the benefits? Once again an acronym HUMID.
Hyperlocal - Operate things at a local level. Give local managers the tools and power. Uurgent - Text messages hit, e-mail sit. People respond to text messages quicker than other forms of communication. Measureable - Mobile is a data-crunchers dream. Immediate - Promote cold, fast, hard sales Dynamic - Take action when you need to. Empty store? Do something.
Shoppers love discovery, talking, bargains and recognition. Mobile delivery can address all of these.
Day two of the Strategy & Innovation Forum kicked off with a general session by FAO Schwarz CEO Ed Schmults. Ed talked about the challenge of expanding their reach, while protecting their brand.
FAO has been around since 1862. There were two recent bankruptcies in 2002 and 2003. However their direct-to-consumer business is growing. Their retail locations are in New York City and Las Vegas. With their brand equity they are looking to expand their private label toys.
FAO has some brand perception issues. They're perceived as expensive. The store is sometimes seen as a museum or a tourist site. Other issues: Net relevant to today's kids, it's all about the New York store, just for the holidays.
The plan was to repurpose the brand. This started with the merchandising strategy. They wanted to target items that had: Quality, Design Integrity, Orginality, Health/Safety.
With this change they removed hundreds or brands and vendors. Shortly afterward same-store sales rose 20%. Other than Thomas the Tank engine, FAO did not carry a single recalled toy. That's part of their focus, safety and quality.
Their product mix is very selective. There are more private label products and exclusives. The brand repositioning has allowed FAO Schwarz to stand out among children's retailers once again. This change has led Hollywood to their door. Movie studios look to FAO for exclusives for movie-related toys (think Charlotte's Web, Harry Potter, etc).
Their research has shown that FAO is strongly associated with quality. They also had a very high net-promoter score. FAQ has brand recognition similar to large global luxury brands. There is also high affinity within children.
Research showed that FAO is seen as the expert in child development. At first it's kind of scary, but now they're looking to really embrace that. FAO is working with an advisory board to help build that development arm. Ed was sure to mention that their advisory board was a real board of experts, and not a pretend board like some others.
The key questions are: How do they appropriately participate in the parenting community? Who is our audience? Women are a key customer segment. "Women don't just buy brands, they join them?"
Ed noted that they passed on WebKinz. They had a first look at the product, but they felt the quality of the plush was not that great. But that's not what the toy was meant to be. With that
FAO is leveraging their brand by working consignment deals. Vendors pay for the build-out, repay staff costs and FAO only pays for inventory sold. Ed noted that he has brands lined up for these deals. For FAO it's great, they can constantly update/upgrade their stores with no capital outlay.
Recent external capital investments did not focus on IT or infrastructure. Moving forward, one of the key focusses is updating the infrastructure.
With the brand repositioned, FAO is building new revenue channels. They include clothing, health & wellness as well as publishing.
Looking beyond the storefront (Catalogue and Internet) there are things they need to improve on. Their site was boring and not up to date and it doesn't match the excitement of he store experience. They're looking to replicate the in-store experience as much as they can.
Retail expansion has been spearheaded by their Macy's in-store presence. The Chicago Macy's story is performing way beyond expectations.
The next phase is licensing. They're working to license the FAO name to media properties, etc. Internally they're developing a brand book. The brand books sets internal and external expectations.
For Ed, one of the things that drew him to FAO was the ownership. They're owned by a hedge fund. Ed asked the audience, "How many of you are owned by private equity firms?" A few hands went up....Ed's response, "Just you wait, it's coming."
Ed described the relationship he has with the owners, it's not unlike a traditional board. There is a need for constant communication. You need to know are they investors or operators? Investors are starting to think like brands. They want to be seen as innovators.
However, owners will always look to extract brand value. You need to watch this since it can lead you astray.
The key challenges of working with owners:
- Want it all, want it now
- Push for every opportunity
- Challenge convention
- Uncomfortable pressure
- How much do you shield your team?
- Must be comfortable working with senior people
- Expectations of success
- Fear
Lessons learned:
- Great brands are much more rugged than most people think.
- FAO's key asset is its brand. We need to honor our heritage, but keep relevant.
- Chart a path that has a chance to succeed.
- Know your customer.
- All innovation must pass the brand filter.
- Private equity ownership has been a huge plus for FAO Schwarz.
There are not many retailers that have not heard of the long tail (if not go check out Chris Andersen's book). The final breakout session of the day featured Jack Jia, CEO, Baynote and Brian Elliott, President and CEO, Alibris discussing how the long tail applies to online sales.
Jack Jia from Baynote was first to speak. Jack defined the major problem as being poor search and navigation, 83% of leads to a site will abandon in the process. Sure you're driving people to your site, but are they conversions? In measuring loss, they found that 95% of visitors will give a site 3 clicks before abandoning. Compare this to most commerce sites which require 6 clicks to complete a sale (from inbound link to sale).
Enter the long-tail dream. Is it better to sell many of 1 or 1 or many? In Jack's words it's tail or torso. In order to benefit from the long tail you need to expand your inventory. Here's the problem, when you increase you inventory, you also increase you chances of users getting lost.
One way to help users navigate sites is the wisdom of crowds. The other concept is emergent behavior. Rather than relying upon what somebody 'tells' you what they do, watch what they actually do. Track usage patterns and learn from them. Recommendation technology is based upon these tools.
Jack showed an example using US Appliance, how they make recommendations based upon browsing habits of other users. Community involvement also helps bring relevance to keyword searches.
A side benefit of the long tail is that long tail products have a higher margin.
Jack then sat down to talk with Brian Elliott of Alibris. Jack mentioned that Brian and Alibris stumbled into the long tail way before it was fashionable. Alibris currently sells 75 million SKUs, 15x what Amazon sells.
Brian talked a bit about Barry Schwartz's book The Paradox of Choice. People are sometimes are paralyzed by choice. How do you balance offering more (long tail) without scaring it off (paradox of choice).
At Alibris they do have a number of options for single items, but they allow other customers to rank/rate and this helps other customers. They're also constantly refining their site based upon customer testing.
Alibris built their own recommendation engine. The looked to their vendors for data. Many of their vendors have a wealth of information about their products. The challenge is to hook into that data. The second factor the look for is demand. A high demand product doesn't always make a good recommendation.
Jack asked Brian about some of their SEO/SEM tactics. Brian stressed that the keyword strategies need to appeal to the machine (i.e. the spiders) as well as the consumer.
So much of the recommendation model looks at user behavior around purchases, but what about the non-purchaser? How can you take the data from those sessions and do something with it? That's the next step.
The afternoon at the Strategy & Information Forum featured two concurrent tracks. I attended the panel focussed on monetizing Web 2.0. On the panel were: Brett Hurt - Founder and CEO Bazaarvoice, Paul Martino - CEO Aggregate Knowledge, Joe Chung - CEO Allurent, Jim Calhoun - CEO Popular Media and Steve Papa CEO Endeca.
There were four speakers, a moderator and 45 minutes....it made for a lightning-round session. Brett introduced the topic by asking the audience how many of them had integrated user-generated content into their sites. A large portion of the audience had. Brett compared that to a few years ago when only five of the major retail brands had dabbled in UGC.
People can find the content they want, Google is becoming more of a brand tool than ever. Of course the CMO wants to know, 'How does this drive sales?'
1. Give you customers a voice
2. Maximize their influence by integrating UGC throughout the brand experience
3. Turn a single voice into a chorus
Integration drives impact. You need to integrate the tools on your site to get people to use them. At PETCO, the initial search filter is now customer rating.
Next up was Paul Martino from Aggregate Knowledge. Their focus is discovery of UGC in non-traditional way. How can you turn people that comment on your products into a sales force? Another focus is interest-based navigation. Driving people through your site based upon user recommendations.
Allow your customers to share their retail experiences within their social networks. However, don't look at the Facebook Beacon model.
Steve Papa with Endeca addressed information visibility. Retailers have millions of SKUs and other bits of information that get buried. In the physical world retailers organize their stores. In the online world it's not so easy.
Now layer upon this UGC. How do you organize this content in relation to the products? You need to make the UGC visible. Steve revisited PETCO. User generated reviews are becoming the primary navigation method for users. Allow the customers to organize the store.
Steve stressed that we're in the first innings of this UGC game and you need to be able to adapt, listening to your customers can help with that.
Next to speak was Jim Calhoun with Popular Media. Jim did a quick review of how the landscape has changed over the past few years. What we're seeing is a new set of tools that go beyond traditional behavioral targeting. Targeting that is based upon social networks is way more powerful. As botched and as painful Beacon was, it's the future. Of course the execution needs to be better.
You need to know what percentage of your customer base is participating in online social networks (i.e. MySpace, Facebook). You need to understand how to market your product now how you want, but how the customer wants.
Jim thinks of it as user-distributed content. It provides: Great leads, great customers, high conversion rates, etc.
The final panelist was Joe Chung with Allurent. Joe talked about redefining the shopping experience and perhaps the notion of social commerce. The goal is to move beyond shopping systems built by geeks for geeks. Until now, people would shop in one window or tab and the participate in social networks in the other. Why not a crossover?
User experience can be monetized in the sense that it improves the usability of the site. Make things easier to use. Joe reference a case study where they redesigned the check-out process for a client and drove a 24% increase in sales.
Another concept that Joe showed was widget-based shopping. The ability to browse, select and check-out all within the browser window of another site.
The goal is move shopping and social interaction closer together. Much of this involves taking the shopping experience out of the traditional environment.
The second keynote of the day featured Bob Myers, SVP QVC.com and Direct Response Marketing, QVC.com. Bob's talked focussed on the multi-media aspects of QVC's operations, specifically how they integrate the web and broadcast.
QVC is the second most profitable network, this includes the majors. For Bob, advertising and marketing is somewhat interesting, since they run a network. However, they do very little traditional advertising. They have always relied upon word of mouth. They sell stuff via product demonstrations on air.
Now some stats. They reach 90,000,000 home, handled 179,000,000 calls, 341 calls per minute, 3.5 items shipped per second. It's some serious velocity. On the web the numbers are there as well. 200,000,000 page views in their online community, 400,000 online customer reviews.
Their old web site was a very good transactional site, so why change it? They have a social shopping experience on air, why not online?
The company brand experience are the 3 E's: Enrich, Entertain, Engage....they applied these online. The first step was integration of video on the web. Customers want to see their favorite show or host online. It's about providing the content when and where the customer wants it.
A major initiative is the 'Item on Air'. It shows the web user the item that is currently being sold. They can also watch the webstream of the video. The inventory numbers are updated every six seconds, both on the air and on the web. There is video all over the site.
Their program guide was also upgraded in the web re-design. Video is included on the program guide, so instead of a paragraph they can watch an actual preview.
'Items Recently on Air' allows customers to view things they may have missed on their favorite shows. From a technical standpoint it's difficult. It's about media asset management. Bob said that video and media asset management will be your next new headache.
The next major initiative for QVC was the social shopping community. It starts with things like interactive polls. They embed community on every page of their site. QVC has 24 full-time internet sales managers. They interact with online communities. Many sections of the site feature host blogs, forums, responses, etc.
An innovative feature is their Model's Closet. This section of the site allows broadcast viewers to review products not currently featured.
The important thing to remember is that what drives them is not an online commerce strategy, it's a company-wide strategy. Much of what they're featuring online is driven by their broadcast product.
The 2008 Strategy & Information Forum kicked off Wednesday morning with a keynote by Andy Sernovitz. Andy is known as the WOMM guy, that's Word of Mouth Marketing. Andy's job as the opening keynote was to set the stage for the next two days, so of course the topics were Web 2.0, CGM, and WOMM.
Andy started off his talk with some examples of great, simple WOM. It's the little things that make all the difference. He talked about Red Envelope and how with great product presentation they turn the conversation to their brand.
There has been a evolution in the marketing business, ads to affiliate to search to WOM. With traditional advertising you pay up front, need to monitor the program and then measure results. With affiliate marketing you only pay for success, but it sometimes doesn't scale well. With search you can reach millions for a very low cost, but there is still overhead and management. With WOM, the work is done by the customer, usually at no cost.
The secret to increasing ROI is to get other people to spread your ads for free.
One of the things that lead to Amazon's early success was the affiliate program. They made it really easy for people to run their ads...and yes the affiliate program is advertising. When the first blogging widgets were created, Amazon was there. This enabled them to reach a whole new audience of advertisers.
With traditional advertising, you run it and it's done. That's the way traditional banners. People never save banners. With WOM it can go on and on. With good WOM the true test is will people keep doing it without paying for it. If a blogger picks up a WOM campaign, that blog post will live forever and chances are the reader impressions are a bit more qualified than a traditional banner.
Andy showed the popular Will it Blend campaign. You have millions of people watching an ad that's over a minute long. Then consumers pass this along.
There are three tenets of WOM economics:
- Starts Cheap
- Gets Cheaper
- Builds Assets
WOM is also recession proof. Happy customers are the best ads. The motivation is not money or an affiliate link, it's love. Love gets people to advertise for free.
New love is incredibly powerful. Think of the out-of-box experience. It begs for a recommendation.
WOM 101:
1. Give people a reason to talk about YOUR stuff
2. Make it easier for that conversation to take place
A classic example is Krispy Kreme, they gave people to talk about, hot doughnuts....unfortunately they lost that thing. You can now find their product in gas stations. Who talks about food you buy in a gas station?
To make it easier, make it portable, make it mobile. Allow people to pass it along. Make it easier to share.
There are two motivations in WOMM, the first is You, the brand.
The second motivation is Me, ad in the talker. The influencer. The person you would call about buying a car, or travel. Who is your 'local' expert.
There are very specific emotions related to WOMM:
- Happiness: when things to right.
- Love: passion for products, think Apple
- Surprise: surprise them with things they don't expect
- Fun: think about the stuff your mom forwards to you
- Smart: people like to be experts, give them the inside scoop
- Pride: take ego and add information and reward, make them VIPs
- Anger: when things go wrong, it's also the most powerful of emotions
The third motivation is US, make them part of the community. It's about belonging. People love to show their relationships with brand statements. Think about the Harley owners club.
The 5 T's
- Talkers: find out which people talk about you, it might not always be your current customers
- Topics: What makes a good press release, does not make a good WOM topic
- Tools: What's in the box? What are you sending people, can you pass it along?
- Taking Part: This is what scares marketers, you need to get involved, respond, fix the problem
- Tracking: spending time interacting leads to new inbound links, use traditional metrics
The final question is, "Would you tell a friend?" Is that you're selling, marketing...something you would tell a friend about? If not, what can you do to fix that?
I'm off to Atlanta today to take part in the Executing Social Media Conference. Chip Griffin and I are leading the opening keynote session. I'm looking forward to seeing many old friends from the conference circuit.
On Thursday I head to New York City for a meeting on Friday morning. Then it's back to Atlanta for the weekend and a few days next week.
One of the things I'll be doing at the PRSA International Conference is looking at the various conversational monitoring services in the exhibit hall. There are a number of firms that all 'say' they can automate the monitoring of blogs (social media) and provide metrics, tonality, sentiment analysis, etc. It should be noted that a number of these services cost a pretty good amount of $$$.
What's interesting about the search is the I have long said (as have many of the colleagues in this industry that I know/trust/respect) that the free tools and a trained staffer can do the same thing. Plus there is that community context thing :-)
Today at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum I moderated a panel on B2B blogging. When you get a room full of marketers the conversation will sometimes turn to SEO and of course ROI. Mix the two and you have a lively conversation.
Yes we all know that Google loves blogs, but if your only reason for blogging is SEO, then you're going to fail. Back in early 2006 I posted about a newspaper that wanted to start community blogging. I told them if the reasons were revenue or page views that things would fail. The primary purpose has to be conversation and community. If you do those two things right (and have your blog properly configured) then SEO and all the other benefits should follow.
During the panel today the analogy I used was this:
If your fiance asks you why you love him/her and want to spend the rest of your life with them you shouldn't say:
A. I'm looking for increased ROI thru shared living expenses.
B. You have a great network of (hot) friends, and partnering with you allows me to position myself favorably with them.
It should first and foremost be about love and compassion (with your fiance).
I'm still recovering from BlogOrlando and hope to have a big wrap-up/thank-you post up in the next day or two. For now though I'm off to Chicago for the MarketingProfs B2B Forum.
