CopyDiva

Here’s a data point. I was at a Business Marketing Association meeting last week, talking to an agency principal who’s recently started using a social media monitoring service — the name of which I frankly can’t remember (I hadn’t heard of them before anyway). He had also demo’ed one of the bigger players in the space as well, but chose this new vendor because he liked the user interface better. In his mind, the actual data collection were comparable amongst all the vendors he looked at.

His need was not focused on real-time data — he needed brand-related data, which any of the vendors have, some of it real time, some not, some more robust and complete, some with more sources available.
What I wonder, from this very unscientific singular data point: Are measurement and social media monitoring services losing differentiation? Are they all delivering the same promise, or is it time for these folks to really work on that differentiation among the brands?

Certainly, there are differences — in everything from data quality to the analytics. But, are the vendors in this space doing a good job of letting the market know their differences? Do they need to at this point, or is the market big enough for continuing generic explanations of what social media monitoring or listening services offer?

Here’s my every now-and-again list of posts that’s I’ve liked and followed recently:

• I have heard many people talk about how every company should have a blog, which I really disagree with. Seems BL Ochman and I follow the same line of thinking.
• Discussions of measurement and ROI abound, both in the context of scalability (and here) and justification of paying for social media engagement.
• And yet others on measuring Word-of-Mouth and standardizing metrics there as well.
• Ways to bucket social media technologies.
• Should corporate communications people show their true colors when engaged online, or does that deflect from “the brand?”

Though there seem to be two a week that are “must be there” conferences — this week, for example, the Shop.org Annual Summit in Vegas and Web 2.0 in NYC — I was glad to come across this helpful list today, from Paul O’Brien:

1. Search Engine Strategies (SES)
2. Pubcon (WebmasterWorld)
3. ad:tech
4. eTail
5. Search Insider Summit
6. Affiliate Summit
7. Shop.org
8. Online Market World
9. Direct Marketing Association
10. eMetrics Summit
11. Search Marketing Expo (SMX)
12. OMMA Expo
13. Internet Marketing Conference
14. SXSW - which you should attend just because
15. iMedia Agency Summit & iMedia Summits
16. PPC Summit
17. MarketingProfs
18. American Marketing Association (AMA)
19. Online Marketing Summit
20. MIXX Expo
21. Media Relations Summit
22. ACCM (DMA)
23. DM Days (DMA)
24. Searchnomics
25. ClickZ Specifics
26. Internet Retailer
27. Web Analytics Association Base Camp
28. Next Generation Marketing
29. eRetailer Summit
30. New Marketing Summit
31. IAB Events
32. MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit
33. Apartment Internet Marketing - really!
34. Frost & Sullivan Marketing World
35. T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
36. Catalog & ECommerce Club
37. Blog World Expo
38. eComXpo

The other day my friend Barry called me. This is a very talented and smart guy in the events production business — he’s the guy you want to call to create fantastic corporate events — sales meetings, large trade shows, etc. He had questions about social media, because he still wasn’t getting how social computing tools might be important to him. To quote him as directly as possible: “Why do I want to Twitter? It just seems like a distraction.” Indeed, it can certainly be that. But, when put in the right context, even Barry understands how he can use social media and social computing tools (more on that after this upcoming related thought).

One of the biggest issues I have right now with all the PR and marketing folks who are talking about how to use social media for business and communications is that the advice and ideas are so general, it’s really difficult for your average business owner or corporate marketer to get a handle on how the advice applies to them. For example, this from last week’s NYTimes, or even this from Chris Brogan’s blog, which both discuss Twitter. These are very general strategies that may or may not be appropriate or helpful to the vast majority of people in business.

The key to remember about all things social media, particularly as they apply to marketing and PR, is this: they are tools. Not all tools are going to work for every company. Social media tools — communities, blogs, forums, update platforms like Twitter and Friendfeed — are also for selective use. If you get out of the “I must jump on board now with social media!” bandwagon, then you will give yourself the opportunity to explore HOW these tools could help you in business.

For Barry, I suggested he could find certain tools helpful for organizing around events, such as setting up a Friendfeed group around a particular conference to generate discussion for those attending or presenting. Or, setting up a short-term Twitter account to broadcast announcements to those who are attending, update room changes and speaker changes, etc during the conference as a better and quicker method of online updating than email.

Putting the tools in context helped him relate to these tools from the mindset of his business — not just from a business promotion perspective, but more importantly, how social computing could enhance the service he provides to his customers. 

Interesting posts I read this week, so far:

• Improving your website as a business asset and lead generator: This post at conversation marketing gives you concrete steps to take for a 3-hour improvement on your site (probably good for sites that don’t have 100’s of pages).
• WOM moneyback guarantee: WOM agency BzzAgent is challenging themselves by pitting their efforts against a typical interactive shop — if they don’t do 20% better than an agency, your WOM campaign is free. Kudos to them on that challenge, its very compelling.
• Top 50 Women Bloggers: Want to know which women bloggers have the most influence (granted, as per usual, this is a subjective analysis)? What really intrigued me about this story was the incredible diversity of topics of these women, from knitters to sex therapists to techno-geeks.
• Alisa Leonard has great, cheeky insights when I remember to read them. She added to her list of things to do when you want to get social.

Today, my snail mail showed up with yet another catalog that I never order from. Here’s the basic reality: I can count on one hand how many purchases I’ve made, from a paper catalog, in the last year. These purchases were from two catalogs: RoadRunner Sports (where I buy my running shoes and the very occasional item of running clothes) and Sierra Trading Post (skivvies for skiing and assorted outdoor activities).

I am not a paper catalog buyer, generally speaking. So why does LL Bean continue to send me catalogs? And Lands End, Chico’s, Title Nine (who has a store in my town that I could go to instead), etc? The catalog industry is in the dull-drums, thanks to Internet buying habits of people like me. But, it really peeves me that perfectly good trees are cut down and wasted so that the catalog industry can create glossy catalogs for me to put right into my recycling bin.

I would think that in today’s world of marketing and sales metrics, the catalog companies would figure out that I am a bad target — haven’t ordered from you in many years — and simply cull me from their list. Most sales organizations do this regularly, so that they don’t waste time marketing to people who, frankly, are not interested. Otherwise, marketing lists get unwieldy, corrupt and create lousy return on lead gen efforts.
Compare this to other companies that are more Internet and search-driven, like Zappos and Bluefly.com. I’ve ordered from Zappos (though I did return my order), and though they maybe have a catalog, I haven’t received one from them. Blessedly. Same with Bluefly — what they sent was a clever postcard coupon for a percent off my next purchase, a few months after my last purchase.

So, my message to companies like this — its time to diversify your customer relationship strategy, your lead generation strategy. Thanks to search and other online marketing, many people - maybe most - don’t buy the way they used to even 5 years ago.

• strategize better search terms to expand customers for specific types of products (like running shoes, flip flops, etc) that people tend to repeat buy
• go niche — products targeted at natural communities (scrapbookers, cyclists, techno-geeks) work better than demographics - remember, just because I am a white, middle-class mom with kids, doesn’t mean I have the same interests as another white, middle-class mom with kids who lives next door
• create more interactive shopping experiences for items that are difficult to shop for online (shoes, bathing suits, dress suits) AND make returns of those items free of charge — it works for Zappos

As someone who’s worked on the sales and client services side of marketing companies, Jim Sterne’s post today on Metrics Insider really resonated with me. What he talks about is that sometimes it is difficult to get a decision about contracted metrics goals for online marketing, because there are so many things to measure — you can really get off track quickly, trying to resolve organizational goals with what the metrics are hoping to achieve. Meaning, there can be a disconnect between how you are compensated (as a project leader) and the organizational goals. Case in point: organizational goals for a web site are to increase inbound leads by 10%. But, your bonus, or the metrics you’re being measured against are to improve the lead-to-conversion rate, or to cut the cost-per-lead.

The point is that its key to align the metrics on both sides — the organizational ones and the manager bonus ones as well.

Another good point to remember is that you can measure so granularly on a web site now, that you need to be careful not to get too hung up on measuring so many pieces. Measure and analyze within reason so that the metrics are trackable, but don’t get too bogged down in the endless details.

What do you do to retain customer loyalty? In today’s world, where there’s always a cheaper place to buy something, or a cheaper version of what you’re selling, it can be really difficult to create any connection with customers. But, as anyone in sales and marketing knows, its more efficient and costs less to keep customers than to find new ones. Building relationships with customers (ie, exceeding their expectations) is an important and often lost art in business.

How do you do that? Well, certainly there are differences in every business, but I think one of the best ways to do it is to exceed expectations in unexpected, memorable ways. Many of these involve encouraging your staff to take that extra step for the customer by empowering them to do things without endless manager approval.
Yesterday, I had a few experiences like this. I went skiing at my favorite mountain, Copper. It’s my favorite for a number of reasons, one of which is this kind of service. So, what do they do? Well, for one thing, they have free parking lots with endlessly running shuttles that take you — for free — to the mountain. They have 3 different shuttles that go to the 3 different mountain bases, so it takes all of 5-10 minutes from when you parked to getting on a chairlift. Which, considering how much lift tickets are, is really nice. At Vail, where ticket prices are outrageous, there’s no free parking, and you have to take an endless walk in your ski gear to get to the mountain. For a day skier, its a crappy way to start and end your day.
Yesterday on the shuttle at Copper, the driver offered discount coupons on rental gear for anyone who might need it. A nice little extra unexpected touch. Then, when I was leaving, the parking lot attendants were washing everyone’s windshields. Why, I asked? Just because. The dude who washed my windshield said the reason they liked working at Copper was because of what they called “The Bro Factor,” the laid back attitude of the company. The Bro Factor is, what seems to me, the authentic approach to customer relationships that Copper takes to develop loyalty from its local customers.
More Bro Factor: Christy’s, where I rent my son’s snowboard gear. He was supposed to go to the mountain with me, but being a teenager, got a better offer that involved hanging out with friends. So, he didn’t use his rental equipment. When I returned it to the store last night and told them he hadn’t used it, the staff person gave me a coupon for a free rental. The reason the equipment wasn’t used had nothing to do with Christy’s, but this staff person felt empowered to do something unexpected. Now Christy’s is just one of a dozen ski rental shops in town, but I go there because of their customer service and because they rent better equipment.

So what’s your Bro Factor?