A plea for
gradual
engagement.
Why brands should commit acts,
not ads and design conversation-
worthy campaigns.
But, most importantly, why they
should stop campaigning and
start gradually engaging.
Photo: Skittles
© InSites Consulting
Polle de Maagt (Insites Consulting) for KoeweidenPostma
Conversation readiness 1

Hello. I am Polle de Maagt.
I failed in most things during my
life (including being a rock star) but am
still trying to reach #worlddomination.
This time by helping companies change
to be more about acts and
conversations, less about ads.
Guess that makes me a change agent.
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 2

Before I forget: follow @polledemaagt
#shamelessselfpromotion
© InSites Consulting
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From ads to acts.
Consumers (finally) forced brands to stop talking in remarkable ways (aka
remarkable advertising campaigns) and start doing stuff that actually made a
difference in consumers’ lives.
© InSites Consulting
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From ads to acts: KLM showed they were really
recognizing the person behind every customer.
With the KLM Surprise campaign, they surprised customers based on their
Foursquare and Twitter checkins. Talking about remarkable customer service …
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 5

From ads to acts: Nike
changed the way
people run.
Nike could have done another
advertising campaign. Instead, they
did everything to create the coolest
running club ever, the Nike
RunHouse.
And they went even further, they
used smart technology to make
people run different routes and
longer distances: the Nike+ Graffiti
Challenge.
© InSites Consulting
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Paid
Earned Owned
Towards conversation-worthy acts.
Brands expanded their paid presences into owned and earned presences. That
meant they started to design campaigns and acts to be conversation-worthy,
that would travel through offline and online conversations.
© InSites Consulting
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Isn’t she cute? It helped Antwerp Zoo to capitalize on
their unused potential: their animals and employees.
It brought them 300.000 extra visitors, a nomination for product of the year and the
best thing … the number one carnival suit of that year.
© InSites Consulting
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Design to be conversation-worthy on every level.
Design your acts to be worth talking about and worth sharing. Plan for
touchpoints, people and conversion.
© InSites Consulting
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… and finally, (gradual) engagement.
We came from acquisition to retention to advocacy. It isn’t so much about reach,
it’s more about engagement. It isn’t so much about campaigns, it is about
gradual engagement.
Because conversations aren’t a seasonal thing, it’s a 24/7/365 thing.
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 10

Facebook forces
engagement.
A lot of campaigns are designed to
collect Facebook likes. To be able
to tap into the consumer news
feed, however, a consumer had to
have a recent interaction with a
brand.
"News Feed (…) is a constantly
updating list of stories from people
and Pages that you follow (…)
bases this on a few factors: how
many friends are commenting on
a certain piece of content, who
posted the content, and what type
of content it is (e.g. photo, video, or
status update)".
© InSites Consulting
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Gradual engagement.
Gradual engagement starts from small interactions between brands and consumers.
Interactions, to engage consumers by little baby steps. Small steps that, all together,
make a giant leap. But more importantly, people are engaged 24/7/365, not just
during campaigning season.
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 12

Example? Skittles’ smart triggers.
Using great copy and teasing visuals Skittles engages thousands of consumers every
single time they post a wallpost on Facebook. It creates a continuous stream of small
but extremely pleasant interactions.
© InSites Consulting
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Engagement funnel.
Engagement isn’t just for fun. We’re working to build a brand here. Interactions
should be designed to engage consumers, not to spam them or yelling louder
and actually take them further into brand engagement.
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 14

Engagement funnel: campaigns versus programs.
Campaigns are large adhoc efforts to force reach. Programs are constant small
interactions to activate consumers to stay engaged or (preferably) move further into the
engagement funnel.
Thanks to my buddy Jourik Migom for highlighting the difference between campaigns and programs.
Large
campaign to
gather
followers
Compelling
copy
Adwords
campaign
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 15

Il Giglio d’Oro, a pretty simple bed & breakfast in
Firenze turned every customer into an advocate.
It helped them to become the #1 bed & breakfast in Italy and #8 bed & breakfast in
Europe. Conversion between stumbling and endorsing.
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 16

Blurb goes the
distance in stimulating
people to talk about
them.
Try measuring the Net Promoter
Score to see how likely it is that your
colleagues will recommend your
company.
Conversion between following
and endorsing / contributing.
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 17

Turkcell created a continuous live interaction.
To promote it’s mobile offering, Turkcell created a live twitter-based game.
Based on twitter interactions, post-its would be removed, changed or added.
Conversion from stumbling to folllowing / endorsing / contributing.
© InSites Consulting
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Let me know what you think of gradual engagement.
It’s still a concept I’m working on. It’s pretty much beta. So, feel free to comment,
add or criticize via polle@insites.eu, @polledemaagt or
polle.me/gradualengagement.
© InSites Consulting
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You can forget most of my marketing lingo.
But please, remember these 3 things.
© InSites Consulting
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1) Design to be conversation-worthy on every level.
Design your acts to be worth talking about and worth sharing. Plan for
touchpoints, people and conversion.
© InSites Consulting
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2) Plan for engagement.
Engagement isn’t just for fun. We’re working to build a brand here. Interactions
should be designed to engage consumers, not to spam them or yelling louder
and actually take them further into brand engagement.
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 22

3) Combine campaigns and gradual engagement.
Gradual engagement starts from small interactions between brands and consumers.
Interactions, to engage consumers by little baby steps. Small steps that, all together,
make a giant leap. But more importantly, people are engaged 24/7/365, not just
during campaigning season.
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 23

I hope I was conversation-worthy.
If so: spread the word.
Find me on twitter (@polledemaagt) or
just send me an email at
polle@insites.eu.
Download the presentation at
http://polle.me/koeweidenpostma
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 24