Transparency, not naivety

Transparency is important and it’s a good thing, but there are limits. We must distinguish between openness and naivety; there’s a difference between openness on the one hand and killing the mystique on the other. Several years ago I visited Efteling Park on business. The park itself was closed at that time of year. When I asked if we could take a look behind the scenes, I was told that wasn’t possible because ‘you also come here with your children and we don’t want to spoil the Efteling magic.’ I thought that was a wonderful answer. In my opinion, Efteling is a company with an open and pleasant communication policy. You get to glimpse what goes on behind the scenes, but always in a way that is in keeping with the Efteling image.

The limit? The Mickey Mouse rule.

The true art of transparent communication is being able to communicate openly in a way that suits the brand. The consumer doesn’t expect you to spoil the magic. After all, who cares what the guy in the Mickey Mouse suit looks like? There’s a big difference between dismantling the magic and being kept in the loop where the park’s new ideas and concepts are concerned. Fans are for instance interested in hearing how the management level sees the future. When mistakes are made, the consumer expects a correct and honest answer. Things like this make for more transparency. Transparent communication actually boils down to telling the truth about certain choices; it’s certainly not about spoiling the magic. Set your own Mickey Mouse limit and determine how far you want to go without crossing the boundaries you’ve set.

Don’t abuse the words ‘transparency’ and ‘openness’

It would be a shame if a small group of people were to take advantage of the words ‘transparency’ and ‘openness’ to try and force companies into revealing every last detail. Transparency and openness are such beautiful words, but in all likelihood they are also two of the most frequently abused words. Some merely use them when it’s to their advantage to do so. By the way, when transparency is used for opportunistic reasons, it may well have the opposite effect.

So let’s be grateful for companies that have learned to communicate transparently, clearly and unambiguously with regard to their choices and policy, their strengths and weaknesses. Let’s not force them into revealing more than strictly necessary. We’re not supposed to lift the magic veil surrounding brands and companies. These two aspects feed off each other and there’s no conflict between protecting the mystique and transparent communication.

Don’t ever cross the Mickey Mouse line.

Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know.

A real social conversation company goes beyond an online customer care team that only solves issues. A real social company not only wants to solve the (reputation) issue, they alsowant to solve the real problem that causes the issues . As you can see in the table of contents above the focus of the guide is not just about customer care or a campaign. The goal is to convince your executive that your company needs to become a social company. The guide outlines 20 principles that lead that change. A short summary to get you started with the guide.

Lay the Groundwork for Social Success: Convey clear benefits to your business, customers, and employees

The first phase is certainly not easy, but it lays the foundation for success. Determine what the added value of social is for your business, your customers and your employees. “Give your colleagues a reason to believe” is a good quote for this crucial phase. For these significant changes to take effect in your organization, you need allies. So make sure you get support. It’s definitely also needed for the last step in this phase the creation of a Social Taskforce.

Know you customers like never before: Gain social insights to understand what really matters

Negative sentiment about your company in social media is no fun for a marketeer. But the real marketer realizes that social media is almost realtime market research and sees social as a wonderful way to get to know the customers and see what your company needs to improve. No more waiting for a report from your market researchers. With social you have direct feedback from (some of) your customers. “Social media isn’t a nuisance, it’s one of the greatest gifts your business could ask for“.

Connect and collaborate with colleagues instantly: Flatten your organization, uncover expertise, and improve productivity

This phase is about the internal organization of your company. It’s about passionated and engaged employees who share information with each other by using internal social media. Make social engagement—internal, external, or
both—a criteria to become a top performer. Tear down does silos. All employees share, communicate, are open and willing to make new connections social media.

Build deeper relationships by engaging customers in new way: Collaborate in real time with customers, prospects, and partners

The previous chapter was about tearing down silos within your company. This chapter is about breaking the barriers between your company and your customers. It’s about true collaboration, turning customers and partners into stakeholders. Almost Steven’s definition of customers in his book the Conversation Company “Customers are employees that are not on your payroll”. A previous post can help to get more insights in how to implement a successful collaboration strategy: 5 pillars for a successful evolution towards structural collaboration.

Listen and lear from public social networks: Get insights to shape unique experiences for your communities

The last chapter starts with setting up a listening center. My article about Social Media Monitoring Tools & Listening Centers and the Altimeter 2012 report Social Media Management Systems might by useful in this phase. A Listening Center, Social Intelligence Center or Command center not only manages your companies conversations. The center also turns the avalanche of social data into valuable information. Information that helps you to make your company more customer centric, change processes or service if needed and improve your online conversations. Ending in creating remarkable online experiences as a social company.

Overall a nice set of principles to get you and your executive started. Do share the guide with someone in your company who can help. It’s your first fellow thinker. One additional advice from me that I missed in the guide: Set up a reporting system that shows your progress towards the KPIs and the organizational goals. Remember, executives are focused on the overall goals of the organization!

In just 3 years, we have released 3 best-selling books capturing contemporary marketing thinking: ‘The Conversation Manager’ and ‘The Conversation Company’ by Steven Van Belleghem and ‘How Cool Brands Stay Hot’ by Joeri Van den Bergh, both partners at the agency. Following the success of the conversation management range of ideas, InSites Consulting started getting more and more client requests to actually help implement the ideas embedded in the conversation books.

In order to accommodate this increasing demand, InSites Consulting decided to bring together conversation management inspiration, coaching and strategic advice under the umbrella of a separate spin-off B-Conversational. Steven will be fully dedicated to running the new spin-off activity.

“In everything we do, the consumer has a pivotal role: we create relevance by generating strong insights through consumers and facilitate change management by bringing consumers inside organizations.” says Kristof De Wulf, co-founder and CEO. Making a more clear distinction between consumer-driven consulting on the one hand and in-company inspiration & coaching on the other hand will make it easier for our customers and ultimately speed up our current exceptional growth.”

Using a wide variety of innovative research methods (e.g. online communities, online discussion groups, social media listening, ethnography and blogs, online surveys), InSites Consulting keeps its focus on facilitating structural collaboration between consumers and companies.

“I am very glad to get the opportunity to bring the ideas embedded in the conversation management books to life within organizations,” Steven Van Belleghem concludes. “Given the market demand, there is a strong business case to set up a stand-alone business unit to focus specifically on this new area. The ‘Conversation Company’ is a metaphor for the most customer-centric organization ever. The coaching and inspiration we will deliver a base to focus modern business on conversation management.“

InSites Consulting will also keep on investing in marketing-thought leadership, as underlined by Tim Duhamel, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer:

“Our strategy of investing in innovative marketing thinking has been very instrumental in supporting our growth and strengthening our brand. We will continue on the same path in the future, leveraging the uniquetalent we have inside our company“.

Everybody probably agrees with me that there is not one or barely such a company. A company is about people, and people are far from being perfect. Each and every one of us has strengths and weaknesses. These (in)competences obviously have an impact on a company’s results.

Nobody is perfect

Nobody is perfect, yet as marketers we were trained in the past to create an illusion of “perfection”. Errors have to be kept under wraps. All successes must be proclaimed from the rooftops. Promises should even be exaggerated slightly in order to further reinforce the image of perfection.

Last week I had a captivating conversation on the subject with several company leaders. We mainly talked about the role of employees in the determination of the perception. We all agreed: the perception consumers have of a given company is determined increasingly by employees, and decreasingly by classic advertising.

A minor explosion had occurred in the laboratory of one of these companies recently. One of the employees immediately took a picture of the incident and shared it with his Facebook friends. The company management was not too happy about that. They concluded that the perfect image had been slightly blurred.

Everybody agreed with the man. It was indeed an annoying situation, so concluded the group. At a given moment I made a comment: “I can imagine that this is something a company would prefer not to happen, but is this really so bad?’. Will the company have suffered any damages because of this Facebook status update? I doubt it.

Employees have always talked, and will always talk

Many companies worry about the communication of their employees on social media. But these communications have always happened, ever since people started working for companies. However since the rise of social media company managers are confronted with communications or reflections made by their staff. Ten years ago these same reflections also existed, of course. This confrontation leads to the realisation that the perception of their company is probably not perfect. And that is exactly what comes across as painful to some of them.

I think this stream of thoughts is a paradox. Everybody knows that companies and people are not perfect. This has been acknowledged by all. Yet we still want to maintain the illusion of a perfect image in our communication. We are even willing to gag our employees in order to keep the illusion of perfection.

Accept our humanity

I wonder whether we should not change our approach. Life will probably be easier if we learn to deal with the thought that we are not perfect. Let’s accept that employees will sometimes say something wrong. Some will even share something stupid with their online friends. As long as these are minor types of imperfection, it will actually make a company more human. And that is exactly what most consumers are looking for in these times of transparency: human and honest companies.

Heinz Holland is well aware of this fact. In recent months, the company has been investing more and more in projects with a higher degree of consumer involvement. In this post I’d like to discuss three practical examples of this philosophy.

Case 1: Launch of a new dispensing cap

Several months ago, Heinz launched a new dispensing cap for their Tomato Ketchup squeezy bottle. The difference with the previous packaging is in the dispensing method. The new cap supposedly allows consumers to squeeze ketchup onto their plates with more precision. Since such an advantage can be very hard to prove through traditional communication channels, Heinz enlisted the consumer’s help in launching the new cap. A squeeze bottle with both an old and a new cap was delivered to the homes of 57 – obviously Heinz’s favourite number – Facebook fans so they could experience the difference firsthand and give Heinz and other Facebook fans valuable feedback. The lucky 57 were also invited to make their own digital artwork using a virtual bottle. The results were posted on the Heinz fan page so everyone could experience the new dispensing cap online. The best designs were rewarded with a fun prize. Since consumers could try the new cap both in the online and offline world, the difference with the old cap was instantly noticeable.

Case 2: Make your own label

Everyone knows consumers love to personalise stuff. Just think of mobile phones: thanks to apps no two mobile phones are the same. It’s just what people like. Heinz came up with a new initiative to ride this trend. From now on, consumers can personalise their ketchup bottle by making up their own text for the label. It’s a fun way to surprise, congratulate or thank someone. The initiative is called ‘Say it with a bottle’. The personalised bottles come in a nice packaging and they look like just the thing to give to a friend as a present. Bringing personalised bottles to the barbecue this summer: great idea, isn’t it?

For Heinz, this isn’t a one-off but an exclusive tool that is now permanently available to Heinz’s Facebook fans.

Case 3: A foodies community

The third case doesn’t involve an actual campaign but a structural adjustment of Heinz’s marketing and innovation processes. The brand built a community of some 150 foodies. All of them are interested in food industry trends and innovations and they share their findings with Heinz. Their photos, videos and interviews keep Heinz abreast of the latest trends in the world of gastronomy. These findings lead to new product ideas and concepts. This is the first time Heinz has engaged in structural collaboration with consumers.

Getting customers involved calls for a new way of thinking and different processes.

In ‘The Conversation Company’ I make a strong case for involving customers in the decision-making process. To me, structural customer involvement in making company policy is the ultimate form of customer-centric thinking.

Of course, this is not easy by any means. It takes a different way of thinking and a different way of rolling out processes. It will be extremely hard to involve the customer in every aspect right from the word go.

Pilots are a very useful learning tool with regard to collaboration. These three cases are excellent examples of collaboration pilots. In the next step, consumers will need to be involved in the policy-making process more closely and more often.

I recently conducted a study on the philosophy of structural collaboration among 15 C-level people. The study identifies five crucial dimensions in making this new way of thinking a success:

1. Choose pilots that fit in with the existing culture. Don’t try to change everything at once with the first project. On the contrary, it’s better to go for something that fits in seamlessly with the existing culture.
2. Select the right consumers. Select consumers with a positive attitude towards your company and a certain degree of expertise in the industry. My advice is to find a number of innovators and supplement the group with early adopters.
3. Active C-level involvement. Without direct involvement from top management it is hard to make the transition from fun one-off cases to structural collaboration.
4. An internal impact is not enough, you also need an external impact. Collaboration projects often start off as low-key projects inside the organisation. An external component is indispensable if you’re going to make faster progress.
5. Measure the impact: determine your objectives beforehand and make sure you can measure them both during and after the project. You will learn a lot this way and it will give you solid arguments to present to your organisation.

Click here for all details regarding this study

Can you think of any other fun examples of brands that are able to get consumers involved on a structural level?

Crossing media

I once interviewed an executive at Microsoft. She was spending millions on tv ads to launch Internet Explorer 8. I knew she was very digital minded and I considered here, still do, as a really smart person. I couldn’t understand she was using tv to get people to use a browsers on the web. It seemed silly, to me, at that time. I was pre-occupied, clearly had the online virus. Because: television (yes, outbound marketing, yes that’s one way, no education, little addded marketing value) is a very well working medium for branding and creating awareness about products. Throwing television advertising away as NOT the way to go… it’s just stupid.

The combination of media, a 360 approach, the best of the offline and the online world, be there at every touchpoint, fish where the fish are: crossing media. Pull the plug for a second, take the bigger picture and think of a combination of media to achieve your marketing goals…

Via: PowerPR.

The younger we are, the more we hit that “Like” button. 27% of the people between 18-34 “like” branded pages more than people of age 45-64, only 18%. The education level is also an important factor: those with a high school degree (20%) say they don’t use the “Like” button, while graduate degrees (25%) “like” brands even less.

The most important reason to like something is to show support or because people enjoy what is being said or shown, which rather makes sense. 6% of the surveyed internet users like a brand, only to get a discount or to win a prize. Therefore, brands must reflect on the reasons why people like your brand. There must be made a distinction between people who want to benefit from the advantages when liking a page, and people who simply love your brand.

Main objective
The main objective of this study was to better understand the opportunities in order to strengthen the customer-brand relationship. Recent trends show how important this objective actually is: customer relationships are now more important than transactions. Secondly, retaining customers is more significant than attracting them, and last but not least, products are subordinate to customer satisfaction.

Strong brand loyalty is considered the zenith of brand building, as well as the foundation of brand equity of a company.  There are four major, potential motives of brand loyalty:

1. Interpersonal utility refers to engaging and developing relationships with fellow users of a brand.
2. Information utility stands for receiving and sharing brand-related information
3. Entertainment utility is the extent to which consumers perceive the brand as amusing
4. Incentive utility refers to rewards and incentives

The research model shows a profound relationship between an increase in these values ​​and brand loyalty. In this study, there are 3 types of consumer groups defined. The first group is connected to the brand by ‘liking’ or ‘following’ their favorite brand. The second group of consumers uses social media but is not directly connected to the brand’s social network. The final group of consumers is not (yet) active in the social media world.

 The results show some interesting insights in the influence between consumers and brands. It is one of the very first scientific studies that prove the effective relevance of social media for marketing communication purposes.

What determines good WOM

Rod Brooks, the current WOMMA president, was full of energy from the start. He shared a video explaining the basics of word-of-mouth. There are 5 criteria a brand should meet in order to be a conversation-worthy brand:

• Credible: a brand needs to be credible and authentic
• Respectful: a brand needs to be transparent and credible
• Social: a brand’s stories must be easy to share
• Measurable: turn word-of-mouth into a success indicator of your company and make WOM measurable
• Repeatable: this is not a one-off campaign, but a continuous brand experience

This message set the tone. Word-of-mouth is not about campaigns, it is the consequence of a company culture where the client really is the centre of the universe and the centre of the attention. The way to go is to make a brand conversation-worthy internally in the first place; after that you no longer need to artificially polish on the outside. Unfortunately most marketers tend to brighten up the outside first while neglecting the internal perspective.

Fascination

The first day’s first keynote speaker was Sally Hogshead, author of ‘How to fascinate’. Her presentation was super and very inspiring. The story starts from the hypothesis that every company, every person, can and should be fascinating. The fight for attention is so hard that being ‘boring’ is not an option. Fascinating brands have the luxury to make more money and obtain customers with more engagement. Being fascinating has nothing to do with charisma. We all have it in us. But unfortunately most people seem to have lost it. ‘You don’t learn how to be fascinating; you unlearn how to be boring’. In her presentation Hogshead talks about 7 ways to get to fascination:

• Power: people like to follow a natural leader
• Passion: a person’s aura, warmth, body language can be fascinating
• Mystique: by not telling certain things and by creating mystery, people and brands become fascinating
• Prestige: ambitious, focused people and companies are fascinating. This entails respect, which means they can ask more money.
• Alarm: a feeling of urgency can have a fascinating effect, which entails the need to act rapidly
• Rebellion: creativity leads to fascination. People are fascinated by business being done differently than what is routine
• Trust: this approach is the result of a long-term engagement. A consistent pattern ensures trust and can entail fascination.

As a brand you are in control: it’s up to you whether you share something with the market in a boring or rather in a fascinating way. The aim is not to be fascinating once in a certain campaign. Fascination should be extended all the way to the organisation’s heart.

Content marketing

“If you have a lot of fans and you spread boring messages, you are doing damage to your brand. ’Stand out or don’t bother,’ says Sally Hogshead. After her opening keynote I followed a panel conversation on content strategy. Content marketing is a hot topic, and rightly so. Content marketing is not about the frequency of content updates, but about the strategy behind them.

Jonathan Byerly, Chief content strategists at Dell, then took the stage. In the past, so Byerly said, Dell’s marketing approach was mainly aimed at talking about product characteristics and prices. In order to implement content marketing well, one needs to dissociate from this traditional marketing approach. Originally Dell based its content strategy on the customer’s purchase cycles. Which information are they looking for in which stage and how can we act upon that with good, converting content?
Dell’s next and far bigger challenge was to develop content which influences people before the purchase stage; so they listed all possible problems and questions customers have. Based on this overview they came up with a ‘content journey’. Dell looks for the appropriate content for each possible question. This content is made available via various online channels, ensuring that Dell surfaces quicker in Google searches by potential customers. That is how they help people in a pre-purchase stage. If they proceed to a purchase, the chance increases that they will buy at Dell.

At Dell, they create 30% of the content themselves and the other 70% originates from other sources. You needn’t create all content yourself to make your brand position stronger, Byerly stated. Dell hires copywriters who write the ‘owned content’ messages. These writers do not have any technical knowledge, which is intentional: there are technical experts for every type of content at Dell available. At the end of his session Byerly handed out some very specific tips about content marketing:

• Make sure the content process is well organized; this is the basis of being successful at working with content
• This is not just about your own website; it’s about mapping an entire online eco system. Understand how people search and what your best chances are at getting your content to your target group
• Be an advisor, train people and build confidence. This confidence is at the origin of your future turnover
• Invest in ‘personal brands’ of collaborators who are working with content. The stronger the collaborators’ personal brand, the better this is for Dell. Collaborators make the company more human and more accessible
• The content design must be excellent. Without a good design the content will not be spread by the target group

Employees build the foundation of good word-of-mouth

The next session of the first day was about the role of employees in a word-of-mouth strategy. The session introduces 2 people: Dan Jessopp, head of people strategy at Groupon and Graham Kahr, social engagement scientist at Zappos. I think it’s brilliant that people of a HR-team do a presentation at a marketing congress. If a company wants to be successful at implementing WOM, this cannot happen without involving the HR-department. The Zappos story is known by all here I guess. A shoe seller dissociated himself via the company culture and thus became super successful. Groupon was created only 3 years ago, but lives an extremely successful start-up.

This session talked about company culture: unfortunately culture is associated too often with “having fun” at work. This assumption makes large and more conservative companies believe that a solid company structure cannot be realized in their organisation. Culture is about company values. These values are carried out by collaborators in everything they do. It is striking that people hired at Zappos needn’t learn the values. They are only hired if they already have the values in them. Therefore Zappos looks for the real personality of a new employee while recruiting. After proving technically capable of doing the job, applicants are invited to participate in social activities with the team they will become a part of. This may be a team lunch, or going to a bar and having a few beers.

Fascinating day

The word I heard most frequently during the first day undoubtedly was ‘fascinating’. It feels good that word-of-mouth is considered more and more frequently on a more strategic level. Companies become more and more aware of the fact that positive word-of-mouth is the consequence of treating customers respectfully. WOM is not something you can start up yourself or participate in. Word-of-mouth is the reflection of your company’s functioning. Word-of-mouth is every company’s mirror. It’s a good thing to take a good look at it every day…

Tomorrow: a summary of day 2 from the Las Vegas summit! To follow live, read my tweets on @steven_insites.

IBM Coremetrics Chief Strategy Officer John Squire states about the findings in the report the following:

“One thing that resonated throughout the report was that marketing has recognized the rapid move towards customer centricity—away from just product- or  brand-oriented marketing. Th ere certainly is a desire to better understand customer behavior, customer sentiment, and how customer activity drives to the bottom line. Th e second thing is that it’s a matter of aligning the organization to take advantage of the customer information you have. Organizations that had been broken into classic silos are coming together and rethinking all the ways they can reach the customer with a consistent message. The third point was that it’s a speed and data game. Consumers are moving faster and engaging with a brand in more ways than ever, and there’s a recognition that speed is critical—how fast can I get information about what my customers are doing and how quickly can I deliver a personalized message through every touchpoint.”

In the report, the authors give the following key findings in their management summary:

• Marketers’ priorities are customer-centric. More than half (52%) cited customer retention as their top current priority, followed by customer acquisition (38%), and customer profitability (29%). These will remain top priorities a year from now.
• Marketing budgets mirror these priorities. About four in ten executives (39%) are dedicating the largest chunk of their funds to customer retention; customer acquisition runs a close second (36%).
• Online tactics will see significant lifts in budgets. Over the next year, 56% will increase their online marketing spend, 54% will increase their social media spend, and 50% will increase their mobile marketing spend.
• Greater emphasis is being placed on data-based decisions. Nearly half of respondents are increasing their spending on business intelligence, and 78% say there is greater scrutiny placed on what works and what doesn’t than there was a year ago.
• Marketers are challenged to understand the influence of their campaigns beyond the basic metrics of acquisition and conversion. Top performers are using technology to get at these results and optimize their channels.
• Marketers are not always clear on what tools they need to meet their top challenges. Respondents admit being concerned about their ability to get a deeper understanding of customer interactions or obtain an integrated view of customer behavior. But there appears to be a disconnect in how they solve that issue, as the tools that could help—reconciling multiple online marketing applications and lack on an integrated marketing suite—are at the bottom of their list of concerns.
• Marketing is moving at light speed, but most marketers are not watching or adjusting their campaigns accordingly. Just 9% review their online marketing performance in real time, and only 9% adjust their campaigns in real time.
  Top performers are more proactive in tracking and adjusting their campaigns.
• Among companies that said their investment in marketing technology was “world class,” 27% track their performance in real time, and 39% adjust their campaign performance in real time.
• While nearly two thirds of respondents said they segment and target customers based on an integrated view of customer behavior, that view is not necessarily complete. Just 30% have a view of mobile behavior, and just 34% look at social media behavior.

VIA.