Maxys Max Media and Entertainment

In business today if you don't add value or have a unique offering or experience then you risk becoming either commoditised, disintermediated or both.  That equals either reduced margins or lost sales.

Every business needs customers and sales.  In the old days of strong conventional media influence (TV, radio, print) there was a direct relationship between advertising spend and sales.  This benefited big brands and advertising industry "wizardry" model.  Brands were at the centre of the circle. In todays increasingly fragmented media landscape that model no longer stands true.  

The Customer is at the centre of the Universe - smarter, with rapid access to information, sharing and a click away.

From an advertising point of view todays consumer is less influenced by interrupt and repeat  forms of irrelevant advertising messages but increasingly influenced by trusted friend word of mouth.

Think restaurants - you've been searching for a good local Yum Cha - one day you're talking "Yum Cha" with a trusted "foodie" (note relevance) friend and they recommend a place you haven't heard of where the food is great.  Note: A point on "trusted relevance" - if my Aunt Mable who's idea of a great meal is Fast Charlies down the road then her opinion does not hold much credibility, weight or "influence".

Word of Mouth is increasingly the most important element to new buyer decision making.

Think of McDonalds and how they've effectively implemented "cradle to grave" targeted and engaged kids who influence their parents decision making - the paths of least resistance.

It is easier to market to friends then strangers.

Herein lies the challenge for all businesses to become customer centric, engaged, marketing to influence the influencers, creating tribes and a groundswell.

Five Elements of a Social Media Approach

In terms of social media then in my opinion it's very much like running a pub.

1. you need to create or meet a unique need (overall Digital Media Strategy),
2. people need to know about you (Marketing),
3. their first experience has to be great (Experience) - worth sharing,
4. you need to provide a range of tools (the technology) and content for them ("sneezers") to share
5. and then you need constantly engage with the market, service existing customers and innovate.

The 5 Elements Digital Success

1. Fast – news, ideas information spreads like wildfire
2. Easy – technology – share, implement, create
3. Personal - conversation, engagement, trust
4. Creative – be remarkable, step out side the box
5. Return on Investment

Social media questions to begin?

1. Where are you now and where do you want to be?
2. List all your current customer touch points - is it fragmented and departmentalised?  What communications channels are most used and effective? 
3. Do you have a centralised CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System - are your customers on Twitter and Facebook? How often do you talk?
4. Who are the influencers in your customers sales process and external industry experts in your market - how well do you know them? Do you read and comment on their blogs.
5. Why do your customers REALLY buy from you and what can you do to improve?

Footnote:  From "Sneezers" to "Flamers".  The local Yum Cha we'd become customer advocates "Sneezers" (about a 1/2 dozen visits in the last month) dumped us in a terrible corridor table yesterday (ie should never offer this to any customer) - a matter of being too greedy for the $$$.  We walked out, to be offerred a better table.  We ate becuase we were hungry but will never return.

Yesterday I had lunch with one of my clients who is a publisher and sells both conventional print and online advertising space.   One of the items we discussed was their companies sales and marketing approach and success of a new advertising product we've developed with them.

For the record it's going gang busters - she's achieved 2/3rds of her annual sales target in less than a month of selling - she's happy, her boss is stoked and the big UK boss who was out on a visit yesterday was also very impressed. Ahhh nothing better for a business than a happy customer!

Driving back to the office I gave this a bit more thought and one of the important elements to the rapid success was the existing relationships she, her company and products already has with her clients.  One of the most important factors  "trust" had already been established - her clients were already spending money with her (and her competitors) and the new service was innovative and captured her customer's attention.  Her customers want to be first to market - the important WIIFM (What's In It For Me).

"I go in, present, if they are not interested or desensitised to the message they're not going to buy (straight away), I plant the seed, we move on. Interested customers are in straight away, they get it, price is not the major consideration - they want to innovate and create".

As most sales people know this is totally different scenario then selling a commodity product or service with the pressure to make the mass numbers.  It's about moving beyond price and looking to inform and inspire your customers.

The example lends itself to some work I've been doing on Product Lifecycle Management; Business/ Innovation Diffusion Theory and Online marketing strategy development for the new CLIVE service we are providing.

A quick snapshot of some theory

Product Lifecycle

With any new product you got through the initial introduction; growth; maturity and decline.

Business Diffusion and innovations theory

This is the customer product adoption curve and some ballpark distribution

* Innovators - venturesome, educated, multiple info sources; (2%) < we are here
* Early adopters - social leaders, popular, educated; (9%)
* Early majority - deliberate, many informal social contacts; (40%)
* Late majority - skeptical, traditional, lower socio-economic status; (40%)
* Laggards - neighbours and friends are main info sources, fear of debt. (9%)

and

Online Marketing Strategy

The new media marketing view of the world (as opposed to old mass media view) the focus is given on identifying and influencing the earliest product life cycle adopters - "the innovators" and giving them the product experience and tools to tell other customers.

Mass media is focused on the 80% of Early and Late Majority Adopters on the consumer product adoption curve.

So, the focus is on identifying innovative customers.   The rest will roll from there.

The Four Types of Money

Back in the office I was speaking with a sales prospect from a local business seminar we sponsored last week - a local accountant I know and he talked about the four kinds of money

1. Your money being spent on you.
2. Your money and spent on someone else.
3. Someone else's money being spent on you.
4. Someone else's money being spent on someone else.

I began to wonder how this matrix can be applied to selling, particularly our services online advertising and strategic marketing targeting - from Participants to the Decensitised customers?

This leads into buying behaviour - we'll look at that a bit later.  

The challenge for Business and Product Managers

Where does you product or service fit in the Product LifeCycle?
How do you increase sales?

 

One in six user online minutes is currently spent on internet social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

The old online advertising metrics of CTR (Click Through Rates) and Page Views are dated. New Internet advertising metrics such as user influence or a new term such as "customacy" ranking are required.

For businesses, where do you start?

This article will focus on how businesses can lay a foundation for developing strong, future "user influence" or "customacy" ranking and valuation.

What is Customacy?

Customacy is a combination or mashup of new online "customer engagement" advertising thinking and "technacy" (user technology literacy and influence) and in the future, could be used as a method of financially valuing portals and online businesses.

The highest customacy level, based on degrees of customer engagement, is for people who are highly technology skilled and literate; who are highly internet social (add friends, networks); who blog and create content and can influence trends and other user adoption.

A lower level, is for users who may simply tag an article or join a group.

Customacy for business - where to start?

A corporate blog.

For real newbies, what is a blog?

A blog is a bit like an online personal or business journal (see wiki).

According to Technorati, 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.. They estimated 175,000 new blogs are created a day and 1.6 million new posts per day. That is a lot of content!

Fran Molloy, a mum of four and freelance journalist for the SMH and ABC has a great presentation on the do's and don't s of blogging and how to be noticed.

In a nutshell

1. Mum's the Word - keep it professional
2. Make it Interesting - what is your expertise?
3. Know your Message -
   
   1. Can you explain what you do to a ten year old?
   2. Make a story and
   3. Become an expert.
4. Attract Media coverage - two strategies,
   
   1. Wait for the media to notice you or
   2. Go to them.

A business blogging perspective - WIIFM (What's In It For Me)

From a business point of view, all marketing activity comes down to a Return On Marketing Investment (ROMI)

Blogging takes time and skill. Is blogging worth the time and energy?

Expert Status - Online Branding and Internet Marketing

From a business branding and internet marketing perspective blogging is a way of personalising your site and creating you or your companies "expert status".

• "Expert status" - you are referred to by journalists and subscribed by readers and other websites.
• Adding Internet social bookmarking and tagging features to your blog articles allows you to flip the sales funnel into a megaphone
• Free, trusted, word of mouth customer advocacy IS the best form of advertising.
• Have a well written clearly defined article structure and message increases subscription - consider outsourcing to a freelance journalist

Corporate Blogging Benefits

• increased intimacy and influence with your customers
• disintermediate communication layers
• faster product development lifecycles
• increased customacy ranking/ valuation
• The more links and subscriptions to your blog the more you increase your web ranking in terms of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optiminisation (SEO)
• control information distribution - easily tell "your side" of the story

The result is a circular effect - the higher ranked on Google and other search engines, the higher your perceived expertise and credibility.

Beyond current online advertising metrics

Today the majority of online advertising space is bought and sold based on the number of page views and expected CTR's (Click Through Rates). These metrics are dated.

The new advertising metrics.

The new online advertising metrics will be based what would appear common adsense measurements.

Root metrics

Duration of visit; frequency of visit; % of repeat visits; recency of visit; depth of visit; CTR; sales and lifetime value

Action metrics

RSS subscriptions; bookmarks, tags, ratings; inquires; downloads; resyndication; customer reviews; comments; testimonials.

Internet Video consideration

This is of particular importance given the increase in online video consumption which is expected to increase 25% within the next five years

The Challenge for Google

The challenge for Google, as the online advertising market leader, is how to incorporate customacy metrics into their results and advertising offerings.

This will then flow down into advertiser demand; agency sales and website valuations.