BNC IT Chicago - Customer Acquisition 2.0

Jeff G. Molander

CEO

Molander & Associates Inc.

[email_address]

Customer Acquisition 2.0: Social Media & Consumer Empowerment

My ‘Personal’ Take-Aways

Use common sense – trust your instincts

Create authentic, mutually respectful relationships

Be fearless, experimental

Build trust-centric models

Embrace long-term thinking (sustainable business!)

Let customers EXPERIENCE CHOICE!

and the biggie…

You Already Have the Answers

Marketers as Publishers Experiential Marketing

“To succeed, we need to stop standing between (consumers) and their content and actually be the content they want to see …

With some exceptions, consumers do not want to watch content about your brand. But consumers will watch original programming that supports your brand, if it entertains .”

Greg Verdino Crayon

Or Not… Tom Cox Founder Golfballs.com

“ It’s just not that big a deal at this point. Your resources are better spent elsewhere…

Blogs are like the newsgroups of a decade ago -- they were there, but did they ever move the needle? No.”

Goals

Fundamentals

Demystify & define: elements

Changes in customer behavior

Purchase influence

Designing Experiences

Trust

Authenticity

B2B & B2C

Terms

Social Media & Web 2.0

Conversational Marketing

Consumer Empowerment

Word of Mouth & Buzz Marketing

Alternate Reality

Viral Narrative

User Generated Content (UGC)

Elements of the Social Web

Websites (text)

Blogging

Social networks (biz and personal)

Bookmarking (del.icio.us Ma.gnolia StumbleUpon)

Multi-Media

Video (amateur & pro, social networks, etc.)

Audio & podcasting

Mobile

Opportunity is clear: 2.5 billion mobile phones

Less than 2/10 of a percent of the total advertising spent worldwide

Source: Informa Telecoms & Media 2007

Collaborative

Shopping

Working

Collaborative Narcissism

“ Lifestreaming” & Micro-blogging

Multi-dimensional (mobile+Web)

Elements of the Social Web R.S.S.

Websites

Multi-Media

Collaborative

Shopping

Working

Socializing

Tech: RSS, Widgets, Java, Ajax

Experiential!

What’s Changing?

The New Reality Dr. David Weinberger Author, Speaker, Academic “ There is no market for your message.”

Social ‘Currency’

An alternate ‘Currency’ for the Web

Consumer skepticism

Trust & authenticity

Word-of-mouth recommendations

Influence

Challenges

How to be trusted?

Authenticity requires transparency!

What are the tactics?

Trust as Currency Source: Nielsen 2007 26,486 internet users in 47 different countries

Trust

TIME

The New Reality Jim Stengel CMO Proctor & Gamble

"Time is the most precious asset right now. If we can be worth their engagement, that's the highest benchmark for advertising."

ROI 4X Traditional Investments Source: Forrester Research

Time Online Source: Online Publishers Association (Internet activity Index, January 2008)

“ Content ” 43 %

“ Communications” 28.7 %

“ Commerce” 16.1 %

“ Community ” 7.5 %

“ Search” 5.0 %

Content & Community Sites: Commercial Intent Source: Online Publishers Association (Internet activity Index, January 2008)

“ Content” + Community = 51 %

Comparing

Researching

Gathering & sharing opinions

CREATING & EXPERIENCING!

Designing Experiences

Source: "Passionistas: The New Empowered Consumer"

Conference September 2007

Edwind Wong Dir. Customer Insights Yahoo! "It is not (so much) about the consumer's trust in the brand, but rather… about building the brand out of the consumer's innate needs.”

Let’s Get Radical Doc Searls Co-author, The Cluetrain Manifesto Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society “ Advertising is about supply finding and ‘creating’ demand. [There is] nothing wrong with that. At its best, it’s good and necessary stuff. But think about what will happen when demand can find and create supply.”

Content + Community “Crowdsourcing”

$30,000,000 (2007)

Secret Sauce of “Crowdsourcing?”

Emotions!

Suppliers (who are customers)

Approval of community

Financial rewards

Community

Participatory

Cause-minded

Cool-minded

What separates ‘content’ from ‘community’ when the community is the content? What separates customer & company when a community of customers IS the company?

Crowdsourcing!

The world belongs to those companies that…

Identify the right micro-verticals where customers engage deeply

Activate new or existing customer communities that welcome advertiser participation

Make the ‘network effect’ work for you through syndication & aggregation

Think the way industrial designers think about ergonomics – for us, it’s form factors of media consumption

Jeffrey Rayport Founder & Chairman Marketspace LLC

Birds of a Feather… Examples of Content/Community Sites

E-Commerce “Magalog” / Adver-cation

Exclusive Sponsorship

B2B Lead Generation Using RSS Publishing

B2B Lead Generation

Publishing to

Existing customers hungry for content

Re-sellers

RSS

Anyway customer wants it, when they want

Relevant content beyond products

Delicately leveraging promotions

Discovering ‘info consumption’ habits of customer segments

Integrates with Lead Gen Process Responders /Prospects Tele- qualification Qualified Lead Passed to Reseller Marketing Message w/ CTA RSS

Source: Jupiter Research, 2008

25% of ALL Web shoppers are influenced

36% of ALL shoppers buy OFFLINE after being influenced by online communities

51% of Web shoppers age 18-24 are influenced to buy ONLINE

Purchase Influence Within Web Communities

What are They Doing?

CONTROLLING & EXPERIENCING

Discovering

Meeting

Trading (barter, auctions, buying)

Borrowing, cheating and stealing

Sharing

Creating!

(using the Social Web)

“ Passionistas”

43% spend 12 hours+ per week visiting sites related to their obsession

50% of consumers will consider buying if it’s associated with their passion

70% are making purchases based on experiences

Source: MediaVest, Yahoo and Conifer Research 2008 Allows them to feel different or better about themselves

“ You are interrupting their life. All advertising is unwanted. So if you’re going to crash the party bring some Champagne with you.” Bob Thacker OfficeMax Inc.