Archive for the ‘Customer Retention’ Category

Blending the Art of Marketing with the Science of Technology

By Jeff Schick, Vice President, Social Software at IBM

Investments in IT have long been the domain of the CIO, but all of that is changing as CMOs increasingly impact IT investments in today’s social and digital world. Given the business realignment between marketing and technology, the CMO and CIO can no longer afford to operate on separate stages. To succeed, they’ll have to forge a shared agenda to deliver business results through innovation and efficiency.

CMOs: imagine your job, but with next-generation skills, expanded peer networks, and the tools and technologies to transform your profession. CIOs: think about sharing your expertise in enterprise IT integration and expanding your horizons further outside the firewall. Together you can approach marketing as an essential enterprise system that delivers innovation, business results, and better customer experiences.

One area challenging both CMOs and CIOs is how to leverage the growing social sphere.

Today’s CMO is struggling with how to better reach and engage with customers. According to the 2011 IBM CMO Study, 82% of CMOs say they plan to increase their use of social media over the next three to five years. We know today’s consumer has unlimited access to information and can instantly share it with the world. This immediacy has raised consumers’ expectations for 100% personalized communications and top-notch service.

At the same time, CIOs are facing a similar struggle within the organization’s walls. That same empowered consumer is today’s empowered employee striving to meet deadlines and deliver superior results at an even faster pace. According to IDC, employees typically see up to 30% increased productivity using social tools internally to complete their work. With a workforce that is socially oriented and geographically distributed, CIOs today are struggling to provide company data on every type of device for their on-the-go, highly motivated employees.

While social is a common denominator for today’s CMO and CIO, what does it look like when they come together to achieve their goals and in the end realize business value for their organization?

Here are some examples of organizations across the globe that are leading the charge, pioneering this C-suite social agenda, and as a result, delivering a superior social, digital brand experience for their customers and employees:

  • Taking advantage of cutting edge digital experience and social technologies, Wimbledon has transformed its web presence to meet the needs of the 16 million people who tune in online to the annual tennis championships. By visiting its website, www.wimbledon.com, fans can share information, interact with, and connect to The Championships as though they were actually there.
  • Cars.com is similarly embracing web experience technology to provide a 360-degree view of its entire business operations, enabling dealers to examine current inventory, change pricing, and manage photos, among many other business activities—ultimately providing better services to its customers. Today, Cars.com has scaled to support 200 million unique visitors a year, an increase of 145 million visits since 2007.
  • Gruppo Amadori, a wholesale distributor of quality foods in Italy, has improved its online presence, enabling the company to communicate more directly with younger consumers and increase consumer loyalty. The organization can create new mini-sites up to 40% faster, saving time and costs. Amadori has also created an up-to-date database of consumer details, helping the company better understand the needs of its customers.
  • The region of Windsor-Essex, Ontario, Canada has created a community portal built to provide the region’s government and related organizations with the tools to help citizens with emergency and community services, transportation, health, utilities, and life events, such as getting married, having a baby, or retiring. Through the region’s innovative use of IBM technology, asthma attacks have been alleviated, a local automobile manufacturing plant diversified into the aerospace industry, and 250 tons of waste materials from a road construction project was made into new housing for those who needed it the most.

Despite a few trailblazers, like the organizations listed above, this collaboration between CMO and CIO is the exception and not the rule, but it’s clear that if your organization is looking to gain an advantage over the competition, this relationship is the ticket to success. It’s time as a marketer to knock on your IT department’s door and get collaborating!

Posted in Alignment, CIOs, CMOs, Collaboration, Community, Competitors, Customer Experience, Customer Retention, Customers, Employees, IBM, Innovation, Jeff Schick, Loyalty, Marketing | Comments Off on Blending the Art of Marketing with the Science of Technology

SXSW: 8 Essential Takeaways for CMOs

By Margaret Molloy, Chief Marketing Officer at Velocidi

Since attending the SXSW Interactive Festival in March, a number of CMOs have asked me for my key takeaways from the event. Articulating these succinctly has not been easy. After all, SXSW provided such valuable insights into new technologies, inspirational speeches, and fantastic networking opportunities. Upon reflection, I can summarize my key learning in a few words: get back to basics.

The pace of the technological evolution is dizzying—racing to keep up with it can cause us CMOs to lose site of the big picture. Digital platforms are not an end in themselves, they are tools that help us more efficiently do what we’ve been striving to do for years: engage customers, know them, guide strategy, and achieve growth and influence in our markets.

Based on this premise, here are eight imperatives to guide us through our rapidly evolving digital landscape, garner internal support, and achieve growth:

  1. Align all digital marketing activities with your company’s business goals. Focusing on the bottom line will help you choose the right platforms to engage your customers and build the digital initiatives to help you achieve the right results. (Remember that innovation and learning can also be excellent desired outcomes.)
  2. Manage your brand’s digital presence (web, social) with the same vigilance as your CFO manages cash flow. A well-executed digital presence—and the appropriate investment in it—will yield the customer data and engagement required to drive business strategy and impact your company’s valuation.
  3. Know your customers in a better, deeper, more textured way than your competitors do. Leveraging social media platforms to understand your customers’ personal interests, preferences, and motivations can provide you with data required to drive powerful new marketing campaigns.
  4. Embrace customer segmentation and pricing with discipline, or risk margin erosion. Given the degree of price transparency and ease of information sharing online, your margins need constant vigilance—not all customer segments require discounts to establish loyalty, referrals, advocacy, and repeat purchases.
  5. Channel your inner educator, specifically your economics 101 professor, when addressing digital marketing tactics with management. Train your executives on the strategic metrics for your business, or risk them defaulting to the popular definition of ROI (number of followers, website impressions, etc.). If management doesn’t know how to assess and measure the effectiveness of digital marketing initiatives, it’s not realistic for them to fund the programs.
  6. Strive to balance long-term customer relationship building with lead generation, activation, and sales objectives. Avoid the temptation to jump in and close a prospect on the first signs of potential interest, or risk losing them.
  7. Consider your brand a publisher and be clear on your content goals—education, entertainment, community building, etc. Draw on the entire spectrum of content (brand-generated, partner-created, user-generated, curated, etc.) to select the right mix to cost-effectively engage your customers.
  8. Be authentic in your customer engagements through all communications channels. Customers are smart, well connected, and can easily identify insincere behavior and expose questionable tactics—honesty remains the best policy.

Focusing on these imperatives will ultimately provide you with a compass to guide you through the evolving digital landscape and toward the digital programs that will help you achieve your business goals.

Posted in Branding, CMOs, Competitors, Content, Customer Intimacy, Customer Retention, Customer Segmentation, Customers, Engagement, Honesty, Innovation, Loyalty, Margaret Molloy, Marketing, Measurement, Metrics, Monitoring, Pricing, Relationships, ROI, Strategy, SXSW, Transparency | Comments Off on SXSW: 8 Essential Takeaways for CMOs

Why “Think Global, Act Local” is No Longer Enough

By Luis Gallardo, Managing Director of Global Brand & Marketing at Deloitte

“Think global, act local”—commonly referred to as “global-local” or “glocal”—is more than just a tagline describing the cross-border pollination of ideas and products of today’s global economy. It was originally used as a rallying cry for people to consider the health of the entire planet and take action in their communities. Today, it takes on a much broader context. From environmental to public policy to business, many have even embraced the “think global, act local” mantra as the philosophical foundation of running a successful global brand.

But why exactly are political pundits and global economists drawn to the ideals of this ubiquitous framework? Does it really provide the context for which organizations and businesses of all sizes can respond to rapid shifts within our economies of scale?

From my point of view, up to now, “think global, act local” has only scratched the surface of this tremendously complex issue. What we need now is a 360-degree view of how we can best prepare businesses for sustained, long-term profitable growth. What we need now is to “think holistic, act personal.”

Global vs. Holistic

Simply put, global is too broad and undefined. It implies that we should standardize and lead from the center, so that we can better drive efficiencies that meet the burgeoning demands of local markets. This is in stark contrast with thinking holistically, which I define as the ability to take into account complex linkages and interconnections in order to facilitate decision making of the highest order.

It is no longer enough to “think global.” We must:

  • Gain appreciation of the world at large, and in turn, know how to best position organizations to win the supreme jackpot of sustained profit and growth
  • Capture interlocking elements, interdependencies, and synergies of the commercial environment

After all, with brand as the pathway to value and gaining the recognition organizations deserve in the marketplace, what better way to drive that distinction than by thinking holistically about business?

Local vs. Personal

Similar to thinking globally, acting locally does not touch upon the essence of human behavior—what we do or don’t do in response to change, challenge, and the status quo. Acting personal, however, mirrors human dynamics and the multi-dimensional profile of each individual. Acting personal allows you to engineer communities, making messages and actions a relevant and timely response to the big picture needs of people.

At Deloitte, we see the benefits of acting personal in our social media efforts every day. Addressing the individual concerns and aspirations of our stakeholders—talking to them about what they really care about—drives the engagement to boost client and employee satisfaction, retention, profits, and multi-stakeholder advocacy. It has the capacity to not just act but to deliver “happiness” with each experience.

Thinking holistically about the recent tragedy that occurred in Japan, we can’t forget to consider how one tsunami has caused nearly half of the world’s most developed countries to reassess their nuclear strategies. The need to act local must be replaced with the need to act personal in order to go beyond action in our communities and address the specific needs of human suffering and post-traumatic stress.

Share with me your thoughts on “think holistic, act personal.” Follow me on Twitter or post a comment below. Do these terms help sustain growth and eradicate major challenges such as poverty, education, or sustainability related to business or the environment?

Posted in Community, Customer Retention, Engagement, Global, Glocal, Happiness, Holistic, Local, Luis Gallardo, Marketing, Relationships, Twitter | Comments Off on Why “Think Global, Act Local” is No Longer Enough

Using Metastrategy to Amplify Your Media Performance

By Alan See, Chief Marketing Officer at Berry Network

The prefix “meta” is used to mean about its own category. For example, under the umbrella of business intelligence, you often hear the term “metadata,” which means data concerning data. For purposes of this short post, “metastrategy” could be described as an overarching marketing strategy determining which media strategies to use during various phases of the consumer purchasing process (strategy concerning strategy).

As your customers move through the purchasing process, multiple media channels have the potential to impact their buying decisions and shopping experiences. This makes an integrated marketing strategy more important than ever. There is strategic marketing importance in each phase of the consumer buying process in today’s competitive economy.

In the Berry Network Social-Ready Assessment, we asked respondents: “What level of priority does your company currently assign to social media marketing?” Less than 40 percent of our respondents rated the priority of their social media marketing initiatives as neutral or low. Interestingly, nearly 100 percent of those respondents are SMBs with revenues less than $100 million. Does that mean small businesses are anti-social? I don’t think so, but many are putting off their strategic marketing planning process since nearly all of the neutral and low responders also stated they “haven’t addressed social media related to corporate strategy on either a formal or informal basis.”

Not having a strategy is a dangerous place to be. In fact, in the Forrester report “Benchmarking Social Marketing Plans for 2011,” analyst Sean Corcoran states, “Any company not creating a long-term strategy, setting budgets, allocating resources, or setting policy is already falling behind. Interactive marketers should follow the companies that were brave in social media marketing and implement now rather than wait and learn the hard way.”

The current combination of declining customer satisfaction levels and economic concerns is creating the perfect customer experience storm. In this type of business climate, those companies that focus on an integrated consumer purchasing process will be the ones that come out on top. That means a relentless and coordinated approach to strategic marketing across all media channels has never been more important.

Posted in Alan See, Customer Experience, Customer Retention, Customers, Forrester, Integrated Marketing, Marketing, Metastrategy, Strategy | Comments Off on Using Metastrategy to Amplify Your Media Performance

Social 3.0: Social Media Drives Demand Generation

By Brian Kardon, Chief Marketing Officer at Eloqua

Best-in-class companies have evolved beyond mere participation in social media. They have put a robust marketing technology platform in place that allows them to see how social media activities drive revenue. Social media is earning a seat at the revenue table. It’s called “revenue performance management.”

Social 1.0: Observe

Social 1.0 was all about curiosity. How interesting? What does it mean? What are the risks? Could social media (or “social computing” as my friends at Forrester called it in 2006) really take off?

Social 2.0: Act

Social 2.0 was about companies jumping in: tweeting, blogging, monitoring, and participating across social media platforms. “We should be doing this,” said an anxious CMO. “We will look cool.” “Look how ‘United Breaks Guitars’ or the ‘Comcast Sleeping Tech’ is killing them.” “We need an Old Spice viral idea.” “Hire a bunch of young people, stat!”

Social 3.0: Convert

Well, Social 3.0 is here, and it is about how social media is driving demand generation, adding engaged people to the database, nurturing their interest, and winning business. Yep, social media is driving revenue growth. It has evolved, matured. And it has earned a seat at the revenue table.

As CMO of Eloqua, I get to work with some of the most sophisticated marketing organizations in the world—companies like Adobe, American Express, and Sony. You may think “slow moving” or “bureaucratic.” Well, I can’t speak for everything these companies do, but in the world of social media, they have come to a remarkable place—faster than most would have expected. They have evolved to Social Media 3.0 in record time and are proving how social media drives revenue by:

  • Identifying “complaining” customers and resolving those complaints quickly, leading to higher retention rates
  • Identifying prospects who are shopping for a solution by their status updates or tweets (e.g., “Looking to switch brokerage account out of [competitor]. Any ideas?”) and responding through direct, helpful communications

Of course, most companies by now have set up processes to monitor the social environment. Best-in-class organizations have taken it to a whole new level by measuring and continuously tracking these people. For example, if someone is shopping in the category, they put them into a highly relevant nurturing program, score their progress, and pass the lead to the sales team at the right time. Then they track whether the prospects close or not, attributing the lead source to social media. In the case of complaining customers, they often put them into “remediation” nurturing programs to win them back. And, of course, they rigorously measure renewal rates of those in the remediation program.

From our experience, the companies that are proving social media’s contribution to revenue have five foundations in place:

  • Actively participate in all forms of social media
  • Have deployed a robust marketing and sales technology backbone, consisting of a CRM system, marketing automation, and social media monitoring
  • Have developed specific processes to deal with “complainers” and “active prospects”
  • Continuously measure and optimize the programs
  • Routinely report on social media’s contribution to closed business

Welcome to Social Media 3.0! If you are still in 2.0, it’s time to step up!

Posted in Brian Kardon, CRM, Customer Retention, Demand Generation, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Measurement, Metrics, Nurturing, Revenue | Comments Off on Social 3.0: Social Media Drives Demand Generation