Ideas in the Social Media Era: I’ll Get It Right the 5th Time

I love this chart. Not only is it funny, it gets to the core of how the social media era is disrupting creativity.

The chart puts its focus on article length (and perhaps the quantity of postings and/or impressions). The chart is silent on quality.

Great ideas have always been distilled to their essence through pity catchphrases. With social media, any idea, even before it’s refined (let alone great) is distilled for social network impact. The network for disseminating ideas is becoming more powerful than ideas themselves.

This is a new challenge for the creator and innovator. When is an idea ready to be published? What are readers’ expectations for quality and accuracy of new ideas? Does it help or hurt your reputation to publish many unrefined ideas? Is your idea sharing risk tolerance dependent on the size and nature of your social network? Are facts and accuracy destined to become endangered species during the social media era?

I don’t know, but I’m going to publish this now and refine it later. My sense of optimism suggests that we’ll muddle through.

Say NO to Marketing Gimmicks

As a consumer and marketing professional, I’m not a fan of marketing gimmicks. In my opinion, they are the pornography of marketing: hard to define, but you know them when you see them. Teaser offers on credit cards, no money down home purchases, ROI studies that promise 400% returns.

marketing gimmicks, Joe Izuzu

Do you remember Joe Isuzu?

If you’re like me, you make a mental accounting of businesses that overuse marketing gimmicks and think twice about doing business with those companies and brands.

Before continuing my rant against gimmicks, let me acknowledge something important: sometimes gimmicks drive results. And because they can work, they deserve a place in the marketing toolbox.

Unfortunately, too many of us marketers lack the discipline to reserve gimmicks for the rare occasions when they might be effective. They are such a large part of marketing folklore that they overshadow the important long term efforts behind building sustainable brands and companies. As a result, I council my clients to take gimmicks out of the everyday toolbox and put them in the dark and dank storage room of once-in-a-blue-moon tactics.

Protect Your Brand from Marketing Gimmicks

Here’s why gimmicks can hurt more then help:

  • Gimmicks place tactical expedience ahead of strategic advantage. The products you worked hard to build over many months, that solve real problems, that create business value are trumped by the output of a 20 minute conference room brainstorm.
  • Gimmicks attract the wrong kind of attention. Instead of demonstrating that your product has value, they showcase that you are willing to make your sales team dress up in an egg salad sandwich costume and play “Let’s Make a Deal.” All too often your silly gimmick becomes more memorable than your advantages. And desperation is hardly attractive or persuasive.
  • Gimmicks are unfocused and defocusing. By their nature, gimmicks are loud and attractive. They’ll generate measurable results like new web site visitors or crowded trade show booths. Like a sugar high, the results are short lived without setting you up for medium and long term success. Instead, you would have been better served by focusing on measuring actionable sales opportunities.

In the process of creating something new, it’s crucial to engage customers on multiple fronts. Instead of solely focusing on grabbing attention, channel your marketing expertise into articulating the intrinsic value of your business and positioning yourself as a reliable and trustworthy partner. Unlike short-term marketing gimmicks, these endeavors demand time and dedication, yet they offer enduring value. Incorporating effective SEO strategies into your marketing approach can further amplify the visibility and long-term impact of your business, check the website linked here for more info.

Winning Customer Reference Programs in the Internet Age

Virtually everyone can agree that customer references are critical tools for B2B sales efforts. In my career I’ve headed up numerous customer reference programs, interviewed a number of heroes at customer sites and written a lot of success stories. The sales team could never get enough customer stories.

Did these programs drive sales results? Yes. Were they what the prospective customer wanted? No.

The plain fact is that prospective customers want to hear directly from current customers…without any vendor involvement, filtering, positioning or influence. None. Nada. This is simply because:

  • End users generally trust each other
  • Customers are far less trusting of vendors

Can you earn a prospective customer’s trust while you are selling? Of course.  But that doesn’t change their preference for communicating directly with each other. With social networks and other Web tools, it has never been easier to bypass the vendor when checking references.

Try Peer-to-Peer Customer Reference Programs

Peer to peer conversations between prospects and customers isn’t a problem to solve but a fact to accommodate. Below are best practices for leveraging your installed base to create a winning customer reference program:

  1. Keep publishing success stories on your web site. They are extremely useful for establishing the facts around the business you serve and problems you solve. Accept the limitations of written endorsements and do more.
  2. Embrace transparency. Enable customers and prospects to share their experiences. Affinity groups on social network sites like LinkedIn are a start, but public forums and wikis running on your web site are better for customers, prospects and your brand.
  3. Don’t fret a few negative reviews. Everyone knows that your company and product aren’t perfect. Negative reviews give your prospects a chance to see how your business relates to customers. You may also use the Delighted platform if you want to create free customer surveys.
  4. Keep things lively. Nobody likes to show up to a dead party. Assign a community leader who contributes authoritatively and consistently, and who inspires reciprocity from your customers.
  5. Achieve critical mass. You want to get to the point where there are enough customer “ambassadors” who can and will respond on your behalf.

Points 3, 4 and 5 are very important as a whole. The biggest negative for any peer-based customer reference program is indifference.

A Fresh Look at Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the one of the most critical macro-level statistics and trends monitored by Web marketers. Simply put, conversion rate is the relationship between two easily measured quantities:

conversion rate formula

Tools like Webtrends, Omniture and Google Analytics simplify the collection and calculation of raw Web traffic and conversion rate. Investment decisions on lead generation campaigns and programs are now based on hard numbers such as conversion rate and program cost.

The easy job for the marketing team is establishing a “natural conversion rate” for your brand, products and company. Just implement an analytics tool, create conversion forms on your site or e-store and measure the results. The harder job, and the true measure of marketing success, is to steadily improve your conversion rate over time.

Improving your conversion rate at the macro level means that you’ve improved your effectiveness in one or more of identifying prospective customers, creating affinity with your brand and changing the individual behavior of Web visitors.

brain_image

Conversions happen in buyers’ heads and are only measured on your web site. Changing people’s behavior by getting them to consider and purchase a new product is a difficult and worthy marketing task. Think about it: do you give out your email address and name with each and every site you visit? Do you want site owners to contact you after your first visit to the web site?

Improving Conversion Rate: the Real Job of Marketing

Knowing your conversion rate is one thing. Having the skills to improve and optimize conversion rates over time is the real job of marketing. Communicating information of value, establishing trust and persuasion are the critical and harder tasks that require significant attention, deliberation and skill. Without an analytics tool hard-wired to customer brains, skill, experience, artistry and tenacity remain essential marketing skills.

Volatility is the New Equilibrium

Cognitive and biological science has demonstrated that our animal instincts replace human reasoning in the face of mortal threats. When individual survival is at stake, Charles Darwin trumps Adam Smith.

Instincts are powerful. They are put into practice without training or thought. But they aren’t always “right.” Those of us who’ve lived a little know that some threats are real while others are illusions of our imperfect ability to perceive the world around us. A noise in the dark will awaken a deep sleeper, even if it’s from the wind knocking over a trashcan rather than a lion preparing to pounce.

I started with a biology lesson because I believe that collectively, our imperfect instincts have distracted us from reality when it comes to the current economic crisis. Let me explain why.

The past twenty years of improving American prosperity have conditioned us that there is a single economic reality: consistent and predictable quarter-over-quarter growth. In the past year this perception has been challenged by sharp declines in prices for stocks, homes and labor. We’ve weathered other declines in financial markets, specifically in 1987 and 2001. The difference is that the current decline is broader-based and steeper than those other declines. No question about it, these changes are frightening.

With regard to the economy, I believe its time to turn decision-making back to human reasoning. The sense of mortal threat needs to be eliminated before reason can take over. Have you noticed:

  • The sun has come up every day
  • Your family still loves you
  • Police patrol our streets and teachers teach our children
  • Innovators are still looking for the next big idea
  • Entrepreneurs are still looking for the next opportunity
  • Lions didn’t pounce in my neighborhood last night

Volatility: It’s Not that Bad

The main lesson I’m learning from the crisis is that volatility is greater today then my comfort level allows. Yes, housing prices have fallen and markets are disorderly. Some individuals are facing “gambler’s ruin” which will severely impact their lives.

On the positive side, social services are available to soften the economic blow for many (though not all). I’m making the choice to accept the higher levels of volatility. Asset values will rise sometime in the future as certainly as the sun will rise tomorrow. Price volatility will remain high for some time and I need to deal with that.

Volatility is the new equilibrium. Purple is the new black. Democrat is the new Republican. Green energy is the new biotech. I’m ready to tackle volatility with my intellect and humanity.

Are you?