Alberta Business Marketing

Recently, I was invited to present to a group of B2B marketers who wanted to tap into the unique power of social media. What was refreshing was that they didn't want me to cover the usual topics found in most "Social media 101" sessions -- i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Because they had done some research about their market (i.e. Canadian businesses with revenues of $10 M or more), they concluded that the best way to truly connect with their current and future clients meant leveraging the only social media tool that continues to experience exponential growth: podcasts.

Because the issues covered in that discussion are applicable to every business evaluating how to best use podcasts to engage key decisions makers and influencers, here is a summary of the most frequently asked questions and the corresponding answers.

Q: What kind of results can we expect from leveraging a targeted, well-planned and well-executed podcast?

A: You can expect customers to take action. In fact, 90% of loyal podcast listeners take some sort of action based on the sponsors and product content found in podcasts. What's even more astonishing is that for 40% of loyal podcast listeners, that action translates into actual purchase behaviour. That's why podcasts are growing at a tremendous rate and why podcast advertising will approach $500 million within the next 18 months.

Q: What is it that makes for an effective podcast?

A: If we define effective as consistently engaging targeted listeners, then the key component is content. Specifically, the content needs to be relevant, focused and delivered in a timely fashion. At the same time, there is a new complexity. Specifically, since podcasts are downloaded multiple times over a long period of time, it is very common for people to listen to episodes several months after it was originally produced. This extended lifespan serves podcast sponsors very well since they want to see their products, services and brand have virtually limitless mentions. But it also means that podcast content should be developed with a long "shelf-life" in mind.

Q: What length should podcasts be?

A: Ultimately, the answer comes down to the market-specific research that you gather as to when your intended/current podcast listeners are engaging in the content. For example, many podcast producers find that their episodes are being listened to during commutes to and from work. It is also very common for podcast listeners to turn on their favourite shows during work-outs, walks, lunch breaks and "quiet times".

Q: Should we start our own podcast or leverage the success of another podcast?

A: The key question really is, "do you have the time and resources to develop and sustain good content, distribute it and promote it?" Many marketers simply don't have the time to sustain current social media efforts (i.e. blogs, Facebook updates, Twitter conversations, etc.). Unfortunately, there are few if any agencies that have developed a strong grounding in producing and measuring podcasts. As a result, it often makes sense to look to the topics/industry issues that your audience faces. Then, begin by piggy-backing on an existing podcast. You can always look to develop your own podcast once you've achieved some success working with a podcast that has established its credibility within key subject areas or with specific audiences.

Q: Since we haven't seen any tangible success with our other social media efforts, should we reduce our involvement with those tools (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and replace them with podcasts?

A: First, confirm the metrics of success and the methods by which you are collecting and analyzing the results of your current social media efforts. If after analyzing your results, you are confident that your results are not worth your efforts (i.e. time and resources), go back to your audience and conduct research to determine if and how they want to engage with you, your product and your brand. It also makes sense to test receptivity before eliminating your current tools. It's quite possible, depending on the audience, that successful customer engagement will require leveraging podcasts because they can be listened to rather than calling upon customers to read.

If you have any questions -- or want to share any insights -- about how to make your podcast a successful customer engagement tool, please let me know.

Andrew Brown

Tags: Customer Experience, Digital, social media, Strategy
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Part 2 in a series about Demographic vs. Interest Based Marketing

In our first post we began the conversation about interest-based marketing vs. demographic marketing. But we are having a hard time finding companies that are doing this in a meaningful way. But check out Google …..

In mid-2009, Google introduced ‘interest-based’ advertising on their partner sites and on YouTube. Basically, they consider a person’s web browsing history and cookies and with that information, select advertisements related to what you most commonly search. In addition, the web user can also identify the kinds of ads they would like to see using this Google service.

I wasn’t aware of this kind of ad targeting until I started seeing ads on Facebook that said “if you’re between the ages of 45 – 49, then this offer is for you.” As a marketer, I wondered why a company would take the chance at being so specific with their ad and wow, how lucky were they that I was actually in this age range. Duhhh! Also, on MSN, I noticed car rental and flight ads specifically providing me information about rates in cities where I had recently been (booked online) or had searched.

Google has stated that at no time throughout the process do they identify me as a person. They simply recognize a number stored in my browser and show ads related to the interest and/or demographic categories associated with my cookies.

I’ve read blogs from people that both love this service and hate it. As a marketer, I think it is great. As a consumer, I admit to being a bit nerved at the fact that my likes and searches are fed back to me but in the end, I believe that I will see more relevant ads based on my interests and that my ‘click through’ rate on ads will increase.

What do you think? Invasion or awesome?

Dawn Marchand, Chair, CMA Integrated Marketing & Customer Experience Council

Tags: Customer Experience, Integration, Strategy
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Demographic-based marketing is so yesterday!

Lots of research/insights exist when it comes to demographic- or generation-based marketing – how to use different media and messaging to reach and attract boomers or Gen Y's or Gen X's. There is less information however, about psychographic marketing – messaging and media that speak to groups based on attitudes and interests. Would marketers be more successful marketing to groups of people interested in the same product or service rather than trying to reach one demographic group? Consider cell phones for example – almost every demographic group needs or owns one. So how do marketers provide relevant messaging to them?

Can the same message speak to two distinct demographic groups who share a common passion or interest? What integrated marketing tactics work to transcend generational divides? In the world of social media, how can marketers benefit from conversations with people who have the same interests targeted by interest rather than age? How do we create rich brand experiences that appeal to a broad set of groups and still be relevant to our key target audiences?

Do marketers care and are we even trying?

Lots of questions but few answers! This is one of the areas that the Integrated Marketing and Customer Experience Council is focusing on in 2011, beginning with our first in a series of posts, below. Feel free to provide your thoughts and examples - let's start the conversation.

Generation E

We (CMA's Integrated Marketing & Customer Experience Council) propose that marketers forget about Gen Y, Gen X and Boomers and start speaking to Generation E – where ‘E’ stands for “EVERYONE”!

We are suggesting that brands that speak to and, more importantly, connect with people who share a common interest – regardless of their demographic or generation – will be the most successful. Sustaining a brand is much more about engaging consumers and connecting emotionally and less about straight-up advertising. We have found a few examples of companies trying to do this but not very many.

Consider Nike. It may market different styles of shoes to different demographic groups but Nike takes it further by setting up online communities of people who love to run. They encourage conversations between “everyone” who shares an interest in running. This means that if you and I are having a conversation based on our mutual interest of running, there is a good chance that I might even do Nike’s job and market my favourite product to you. That’s effective marketing!

Disney speaks to the kid inside us all. McDonald’s markets consistency of experience – whether that be a fun experience for a child or a positive experience for a parent and their children.

Marketers who are speaking cross-generation-borders are focusing on the experience. Hey, maybe Generation E stands for “Experience”!

What do you think? Should marketers be more focused on experiences vs. perceived needs of generational groups? Or does good ‘ol demographic segmentation marketing work just fine?

Dawn Marchand, Chair, CMA Integrated Marketing & Customer Experience Council

Tags: Customer Experience, Integration, Strategy
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In this ever increasingly open and connected world of ours, many would argue that more choice is always better. But is it really? In some cases, maybe the answer is “yes.” But in a lot of cases, I think the answer is “no”, and you may be able to improve customer satisfaction, first contact resolution, and a host of operating metrics by revisiting the choices you offer to customers.

Contact centres are full of choices. Technology is full of choices. And in the business of serving customers, those of us who have responsibilities for contact centres understand that there are a lot of choices to be made. What are our overarching business objectives? What is our enterprise strategy? What is our customer service strategy? What’s our operating plan? It’s a long list, and even once we’ve made these decisions, there are even more choices to consider every day as we endeavour to bring our vision to life.

With the plethora of new and existing choices to be made by both contact centre leaders and customers, it is tempting to conclude that “more choice is always better.” Making this choice may lead to a mantra of “let customers interact with us in whatever way they want to.” Kinda hard to argue with what appears to be a relatively altruistic principle such as that. But making that choice also implies an underlying philosophy that whatever customers want we’ll offer. In a contact centre environment, that might translate into offering services in whatever channel customers choose (let alone implying in whatever language they may choose). But is this what we really want?

Shouldn’t our objective be to deliver value within the choices we have made even if the choices we’ve made do not represent the complete universe of possibilities that customers might want? It feels like sometimes we’re embracing and implementing anything that expands customer choice simply because it does.

I remember hearing a quote from Barry Schwartz (Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College), who authored The Paradox of Choice. He said, “It seems evident that if choice is good, more choice is better. The paradox is that this ‘obvious’ truth isn’t true. It turns out that a point can be reached where, with more choice, people are worse off.” I think this makes a lot of sense.

There are examples of this thinking outside of the contact centre industry. You’ll probably recall that a number of years ago the North American automotive industry offered options for vehicles that sometimes meant choosing from a menu of a hundred or more options. Ultimately, retailers realized that packaging these options required less effort consumers, simplified the ordering processes, simplified the manufacturing configurations, and clearly saved the manufacturers (and possibly the consumers) a great deal of money. I would argue that since this reduced customer effort, customers were happier too.

In the contact centre space, think about some of the channel choices we’ve offered to customers over the fullness of time: mail, fax, IVRs, phone, email, web, text, chat, click to call, co-browsing, social media, etc. Now think about the complexity this adds and the implications to delivering a great customer experience.

Now, I have no doubt that there are some companies and contact centres that have figured out how to offer all of this choice well, so I am certainly not saying it can’t be done … and maybe they can even do it all effectively and efficiently. What am I saying is that we need to take a step back and look at what choices have the most potential to help us achieve our business objectives and deliver a great customer experience … and more choice is not always better.

So, how much choice should we offer? I think it really does depend on your answers to the questions around business objectives and strategies mentioned above. If we consider contact centre channel choices as a focal point for a moment, I can tell you some of us are heartily engaging in this discussion within our own organization (in our AIR MILES® Reward Program) as we consider adding channels and associated capabilities like online chat, for example. We could, and may well offer chat, but when I think about the reasons that customers contact our centre for service, the vast majority have already utilized the web to access their account or redeem for a reward. So, if a customer has an issue at this point, it usually relates to some more complex issue or requires the conveyance of private information that is most effectively addressed with real dialogue, often necessitating the exchange of private or sensitive data. In these cases, I think offering chat will just create unrealistic expectations for first contact resolution and that the interaction will migrate to the phone channel anyway … definitely not a low effort experience for the customer nor a cost effective interaction for the organization. This has been our experience with a significant proportion of our emails, despite our attempts to bring clarity to these inquiries via our website and online “forms.” (I’ve chosen to take a pass on a discussion of “customer accountability” for choice here in the interest of brevity, and that could be a topic all on its own.)

I don’t think I’m alone on all of this either. Interestingly enough, I was on the American Express website the other day and noticed that they don’t appear to offer email as a channel for customer service. They probably had similar experiences to the ones I described, thought through the issues, and reached a similar conclusion. So, as fast as technology and marketing enable new choices for the customer experience, I’m inclined for the customer service side of the business to take a leadership role. Rather than rush into what may appear to be the addition of enticing choices for customers, invest the time with your teams to really think about your business objectives, your strategy, your brand, and of course, your customers.

I’d be very interested in your thoughts and experiences around all of this.

Dave Burns
SVP and Chief Operating Officer, LoyaltyOne | AIR MILES® Reward Program

Tags: Contact Centre, Customer Experience, Strategy
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It’s cold outside, record cold temperatures. If your sales aren’t hot it’s time to figure out why not? And the good news, it comes down to just one thing – emotion.

Yes, emotion. If you don’t know, and aren’t connecting with your customer’s emotional “hot” button you’re missing the mark and here’s why.

• 92 to 96% of the time we are ruled by our sub conscious brain.
• Our subconscious brains houses our emotions and feelings.
• People buy emotionally. Logic may play into the decision purchase and certainly logic kicks in after the purchase (aka buyer’s remorse) if the buying decision can’t be backed up by the logical brain.
• If our subconscious brain and logical brain (executive function – frontal cortex) are not in alignment the subconscious or “emotion and feeling” part of our brain always wins.

So what does it mean? It means you have to think like your customer, take a walk in their shoes, and ask the right questions. It means effective two way communication is needed to uncover the emotion behind the rationale.

So before you launch the new web-site, delve knee deep into social media, spend the big bucks on the advertising campaign you might consider doing a bit of “emotion exploratory” to clarify your customer’s emotional hot button, and then equipped with this information begin “operation increase customers”.

Shelley McQuade

Tags: Branding, Customer Experience
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