Tag: marketing

Delighting the customer – the new business normal

Peter Coffee, Salesforce Vice President for Strategic Research discusses the new business normal where mobile services, collaboration, community and understanding your data are essential tasks for every manager.

Salesforce’s Executive Vice President of Strategic Reserach, Peter Coffee joined the Decoding The New Economy channel at last week’s Dreamforce conference to discuss the new normal — delighting the customer.

Coffee’s role at Salesforce is to help the company’s potential clients understand the new normals of business life. “It’s a lot of listening,” he says.

In describing the new normal, Coffee is in tune with Salesforce’s CEO Marc Benioff in seeing mobile services as being one of the key parts of how business will look in the near future.

“The fundamental statement is your mobile device is no longer an accessory,” says Coffee. “It’s the first thing you reach for in the morning and it’s the last thing you touch at night.”

“Fundamentally people are mobile centric so we need to rethink our operations.”

Continuing the social journey

It’s not just mobile services that are changing the way we do, social media continues to be companies’ weak points in Coffee’s opinion.

“There’s research that’s come out of places like MIT that shows traditional print and broadcast media are still valuable for creating awareness of your brand but the final step of turning someone from knowing who you are into deciding to do business with you is now made today only when a trusted network confirms it.”

“People don’t make that final step of buying from you until they’ve consulted their trusted advisors.”

“Another fundamental change that’s happened is that the connectivity of the customer is such that if you have a customer that’s unhappy with you for even five or ten minutes there’s a tweet or a Facebook post or a LinkedIn update just begging to leak out and damage your brand,” says Coffee.

“The closer you can get to instantaneous resolution to the issue, the better.”

Internet of machines

With the internet of machines, the ability to resolve customers’ problems instantaneously becomes more more achievable in Coffee’s opinion.

“Connecting devices is an extraordinary thing,” says Coffee. “It takes things that we used to think we understood and turns them inside out.”

“If you are working with connected products you can identify behaviours across the entire population of those productslong before they become gross enough to bother the customer.”

“You can proactively reach out to a customer and say ‘you probably haven’t noticed anything but we’d like to come around and do a little calibration on your device any time in the next three days at your convenience.'”

“Wow! That’s not service, that’s customer care. That’s positive brand equity creation.”

Delighting the customers

All of these mobile, social and internet of things technologies will give businesses the tools to delight their customers and Coffee sees that as the great challenge in the new business normal.

While many businesses will meet the challenges presented by mobile customers and their connected machines Coffee warns those who don’t are in for a painful time.

“If you do not have delighted customers you have no market.” States Coffee, “the way that you delight customers is by making sure every interaction with you leaves them happier than they were before.”

“Traditional silos of sales, service, support and marketing must be dissolved into one new entity which is proactive customer connection.”

“Companies that neglect to adopt it will discover they have customers who are sensitive to nothing but price,” warns Coffee.

Paul travelled to Dreamforce in San Francisco as a guest of Salesforce.

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Building business communities

Businesses have the opportunity to build global brands and dominate their industries with the online tools we have available.

Industrial designers and engineers are probably the last thing most of us think of when discussing online communities.

Last week two very different events illustrated just how successful businesses benefit from building communities around their products and services.

Over lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking Sydney Harbour Dassault Systemes launched their their latest Solidworks 3D design software where they described the two million members of their global user community as being key competitive advantage in the industrial design market.

In the business sector, having that ecosystem of users is the key success as shown by businesses ranging from AutoCAD to Photoshop. Almost every industry has some software package that dominates the sector because ‘everyone uses it’.

Building social media communities

At the other end of the scale earlier in the day PayPal Australia launched their latest Driving Business Online campaign showcasing online commerce tools for the small to medium business sector.

One of the companies they profiled was Brisbane fashion company Black Milk Clothing, a Brisbane based business that has grown from a startup to employing 150 staff in four years entirely through its 560,000 strong Facebook community and 655,000 Instagram followers.

While there’s risks with relying on social media platforms as a primary marketing channel, Black Milk is a good example of what a retail business can do with building an online community.

Older examples

None of this is really new, Apple are probably the best example of a tech community with millions of adoring fans prepared to queue around the block for the latest iPhone.

Microsoft’s continued profitability despite being in a declining market comes from its army of developers, system admins and IT support services who are deeply committed to the company’s products.

At it’s most basic, every business needs a core of dedicated customers, committed staff and enthusiastic evangelists — with today’s tools companies like Black Milk are able to build a global brand.

Not every business can build a global brand out of their communities of enthusiastic customers and dedicated employees but the goodwill in those groups are quite possibly the biggest asset any organisation has.

With today’s online collaborative tools and social media services there’s no excuse for a business not be nurturing and growing their communities.

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Steve Jobs’ golden path

Every tech product demonstration is theatre and Steve Jobs showed how it was done with the iPhone launch

“Today Apple reinvents the smartphone.” Steve Jobs announced at the 2007 Macworld Conference when he showed off the new Apple iPhone.

As with most of Jobs’ speeches, the iPhone launch was an impressive display combining the man’s talents, vision and technology to rally Apple’s adoring masses.

Last week the New York Times magazine had an excellent feature on the story behind the landmark launch of the iPhone. It’s worthwhile reading to understand the theatre that goes behind a major tech company’s launch event.

In the case of the iPhone, a myriad of tricks had to be performed to make sure the still being developed device didn’t fail in Steve Jobs’ hands during the launch – one can be sure the Apple founder wouldn’t have been as relaxed as Bill Gates when a Windows 98 system crashed onstage a decade earlier.

A key part of Jobs’ presentation was the ‘Golden Path’, a script that would showcase the iPhone’s features while avoiding known problems.

Hours of trial and error had helped the iPhone team develop what engineers called “the golden path,” a specific set of tasks, performed in a specific way and order, that made the phone look as if it worked.

Much to the relief of Jobs’ staff, the demonstration worked flawlessly and Jobs’ polished presentation showed why he was one of the most admired, if flawed, business leaders of his generation.

While most tech CEOs could never dream of emulating Steve Jobs, almost every one has a ‘golden path’ to show off their product in a new light.

Something we should remember when watching these demonstrations and the press coverage that follows is that most of them are carefully staged theatre and we should hang onto our wallets until well after these devices are on the shop shelves.

As it turned out, the iPhone was a spectacular success and did re-invent the smartphone industry. Along with being able to deliver a killer presentation, Steve Jobs was also good at driving teams to deliver his vision.

Steve Jobs image courtesy of Wikimedia.

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The truth is in the data

One of the big challenges facing all organisation is using Big Data to understand their customers better, Emma LoRusso and Digivizer are part of the new wage of businesses and entrepreneurs providing the tools to help managers make better decisions.

Emma LoRusso founder of Sydney based social analytics service Digivizer believes the truth in a company’s data will challenge many managment and marketing beliefs.

In a somewhat poorly recorded interview as part of the Decoding the New Economy YouTube channel, Emma described how analysing social media trends and tying them into an organisation’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform can help improve a business’ marketing and customer satisfaction.

The Truth is in the data

“A lot of marketing in the past has not been data driven,” says Emma. “There’s still this gap between people saying ‘this is what we think’, ‘this is what we’ve always done’ and ‘this is what they’ve found’ – we’ll come behind that and say ‘let’s let the data tell the truth.'”

That data is powerful due to the context Emma believes Digivizer adds, “because we can map people to the social web based on their profiles – who are they, what they talk about, who they are engaged with and what’s important to them.”

“We let data become the truth and we push back on the hypothesis that might have been unsubstantiated previously in the organisation,” Emma says.

Fighting the average

For some organisations, this truth can be challenging. “The ones who resist it are those with a fixed position who have built a career of playing to the averages,” states Emma. “We get massive returns, say 39 to one, whereas they were getting maybe seven to one or twelve to one.”

“Again, data can be the truth in this story.”

One advantage of real time social media monitoring is marketers can now track how consumers changing lives unfold are affecting their buying habits and desires as people get married, become single, have children, move houses or just simply change tastes.

Hearing the consumer

A key part of modern marketing is letting customers know their voices have been heard, as modern consumers know they have a voice and expect companies to acknowledge what they’re saying.

Emma sees a lot of lip service has been paid in companies to the ‘single customer view’ where businesses need to know their customers better.

“I actually think it’s customers that are driving that,” says Emma. “Their expectation is ‘I’ve interacted with you a lot of times, you’re asking me to engage with you digitally and now I expect you to serve me better.'”

“Now if you plug that data into organisations you can start to offer more meaningful – the right message at the right time.”

Emma believes that makes customers happier as they now feel they’ve been heard and understood. “That’s the beauty in the data,” she says.

One of the big challenges facing all organisation is using Big Data to understand their customers better, Emma LoRusso and Digivizer are part of the new wage of businesses and entrepreneurs providing the tools to help managers make better decisions.

While there’s some risks with paying close attention to customers’ online behaviour – as we saw with the famous Target pregnant girl mailout – the benefits for businesses listening to their clients is obvious. It’s another example of how the slow to adapt businesses will be crushed in the changing economy.

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Being SWAMed

LinkedIn shows once again why businesses can’t rely on social media.

One of the constants of social media services is their habit of penalising users without giving any avenue of appeal or recourse.

The latest example of this is Box Free IT’s story of how LinkedIn’s blacklist censors thousands of legitimate users.

Should the moderator of a LinkedIn discussion group choose to ‘block and delete’ a members’ message, that user is thrown out of the group, prevented from re-joining and have their posts in other groups pushed into a moderation queue.

‘Block and delete’ is a very powerful feature – a thin skinned administrator or a vindictive competitor can damage an individual or a LinkedIn reliant business – yet users have no means of challenging the block or undoing the effects.

This is fairly typical of social media sites; Facebook sanctions anyone who falls foul of their war on nipples while Google users who fall of the company’s algorithms find themselves in an administrative maze similar to something from a Kafka novel.

In every case, the social media service shows it’s unaccountable and opaque, which is ironic as these sites’ proponents preach about the new age of openness.

Once again, the Box Free IT story shows that businesses can’t afford to depend upon social media sites as primary marketing platforms. It’s essential that businesses use social media services to drive traffic to their own websites rather than risking losing their online presence because of an administrative mistake.

These risks are something that everyone using new media should keep in mind when building their online marketing channels.

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Five actions for disrupted marketers

Brands and marketers can cut through the noise of the modern marketplace with smart story telling.

It’s necessary to tell compelling stories with the aid of big data and smart algorithms McKinsey’s Joshua Goff told a conference in Sydney two weeks ago.

As part of the recent ADMA Global Forum, the head of McKinsey’s Asia Pacific Consumer Marketing Analytics Center spoke of importance of story telling, big data and personalisation for marketers meeting the challenges of today’s connected marketplace.

Goff sees three disruptions to the current marketing industry – a proliferation of channels, a mountain of raw data to deal with and a hyper-informed consumer. These are challenges which businesses and marketers didn’t have to face in previous years.

To counter these disruptions Goff proposes five actions; develop a four screen strategy, build a content supply chain, broaden personalisation, understand big data isn’t just about data and forget your current marketing mix.

Forget your current marketing mix

“Spending on digital media and non-traditional media is soaring,” says Goff. “We’re recommend to some of our clients to double or triple their spending on these channels.”

Goff showed ASICS’ Support Your Marathoner campaign as an example of how innovative marketers can create digital campaigns that look beyond banner ads and popups. Campaigns like this are critical to building advocacy around a brand.

Develop a four screen strategy

The four screen strategy is essential as consumers are changing how consumers behave, something that is going to accelerate as more screens like Google Glass appear on the market.

“If we have multiple screens is it not reasonable to think when you turn on your TV – and I count the TV as a screen – that they see the same information?” asks Goff. “But recognise that different screens offer different experiences.”

Build a content supply chain

One of the key problems for marketers is feeding content to these screens, which means world class editorial teams will be essential to getting customers’ attention.

“Content is going to be king going forward,” says Goff. “Content is going to be a source of competitive advantage.”

In this mix, user generated content is a key factor as well. One of the examples Goff gave was Disguised Lighting, surprisingly a business to business operation which proves that getting fans as advocates is not just restricted to consumer brands.

Personalisation needs to be broadened

“If you give the customer in return, they will give you the information you want,” Goff states. “Start solving your customer’s problem.”

Personalisation is more than just email, it now means delivering personalised goods and configurable services. The physical experience, such as a Japanese vending machines that tailors the drinks available based on the demographic segment the system identifies the customer as being in.

Big data isn’t just about data

Data is worthless without the algorithms and the APIs required to understand and distribute the information. To do this well, Goff sees data scientists and software engineers as critical which means the global race for talent is going to be particularly acute in these areas.

As an example of big data, and cloud computing, Goff showed Sberbank’s lie detecting ATM machine that issues personal loans based up the applicant’s voice patterns. The device brings together a number of technologies to deliver a personalised experience for customers.

“We can’t afford to wait wait,” warns Goff. “There’s a lot of change and it’s complicated but there are successes and we need to start our own stories.”

At the heart of Goff’s presentation is the fact we live in a noiser world and for brands wanting to cut through that noise they have to offer something more than what has worked in the past.

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Fighting the content wars

Developing original, unique content that stands out from the crowd will be a challenge for many marketers in coming years.

I’m moderating keynote Q and A’s at the ADMA Global Forum today. One clear message from the international speakers’ presentations is how original, unique content is one the key planks of a modern media strategy.

“Content will be king” says McKinsey’s Joshua Goff, a thought echoed by Weiden and Kennedy’s Husani Oakley.

During one of the breakout sessions, the AFL’s Sam Walch explained the sporting code’s strategy of using content to retain supporters and expand the sport.

The fascinating thing about this content strategy is how organisations are having to deal with gathering unique, compelling material.

For many businesses, getting customers to contribute material makes sense. Josh Goff showed how some businesses, even in the B2B space, were using user generated content to get a buzz happening around their sites.

Others are commissioning their own work with the AFL employing nearly fifty journalists to provide content.

What’s particularly interesting about the AFL is how this threatens broadcasters and the print media business models which increasingly rely on ‘events’ like sports. This is something I might explore on the blog over the next few days.

In the afternoon ADMA session Michael Bayle, formerly of ESPN, described how much of that content will be accessed on mobile devices. Interestingly ESPN has the greater share of mobile visitors for US Sunday football despite not owning the broadcast rights. This is both an opportunity and challenge for rights holders, sporting organisations and media disruptors.

The key take away from this morning’s ADMA sessions though is that we are going to be drowning in content marketing over the next couple of years. The challenge for those businesses engaging in those wars is to make themselves heard over the noise.

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