February 6, 2010

Why customer service must be on the front lines of social marketing

I recently read again about the Dooce/Maytag saga (September 2009), and it got me thinking about customer service in the age of social media.

Here’s the story : Dooce, aka Heather B. Armstrong, aka THE Mommy Blogger, had a problem with her Maytag appliance that the traditional customer service function at Maytag was unable to rectify.  She warned Maytag customer service that she was on Twitter and that she had over 1 million followers and that she could unleash some nasty social media pain on Maytag.  Maytag either wasn’t impressed, wasn’t intimidated, had incompetent customer service, or was truly unable to provide a solution to satisfy her.  She then proceeded to tell her followers to boycott Maytag and complained further in a few tweets.  Within 24 hours, Maytag had her appliance repaired and Bosch appliances offered Heather a new appliance, which was donated to a shelter instead.

Some bloggers, consumers and marketers sided with Heather.  Others sided with Maytag.

My point here is not to add to the debate about Heather’s actions or Mayta’s actions.  That’s been discussed more than enough elsewhere.

This story is a wake up call for customer service on two fronts: one, your customer service team absolutely needs to listen, monitor and engage with customer in the social web, and two, your organization needs to have a social marketing crisis plan.

Maytag customer service didn’t understand why Twitter mattered when Heather told them she was on Twitter.  Customer service didn’t comprehend the potential firestorm of bad publicity due to this one customer service problem, and the potential negative effects the issue will have on future sales. At Maytag, apparently, the organization had a disconnect since someone was listening on Twitter, but customer service was completely in the dark.

Customer service should be using a social media listening/monitoring tool to head off small problems before they become big problems, and to capitalize on positive customer feedback.  Social media is a powerful customer service channel for consumers and brands alike.

And when big problems become enormous problems, your organization must be ready to act immediately.  You must have a social marketing crisis plan ready to go.  Luckily for Maytag, someone was listening and reacted fairly quickly to solve Heather’s problem.

One immediate positive outcome of this story?  A shelter somewhere got a new Bosch washing machine.  Nice.

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February 4, 2010

A social marketing expert guaranteed me 10,000 Twitter followers in 30 days!

Beware the self-proclaimed social marketing expert.

This post at Mashable (from WAY back in December 2009, ancient news in some circles) made me laugh when I first read it.  There were nearly 16,000 social marketing or social media experts on Twitter in December 2009.  That was up from about 4,500 in May 2009.  Wow.

You’ll find that these social marketing experts have given themselves the title.  And few of them seem to agree on anything related to social marketing.

Some social marketing experts argue about the using the term “social marketing strategy”  at all.

“It’s not a strategy!” they shout.  “Social is a complete mindshift for the organization!”

Then, the same social marketing experts debate where social marketing should live in the organization.

“In marketing!”

“In PR!”

“In customer service!”

“In sales!”

“It should live in every employee!”

Some social marketing experts won’t refer to social marketing as a function.  Or a campaign.  Or a program.  Or a channel.  It’s a mindset, a culture change, a long-term play, a paradigm shift… or something else entirely, maybe even a conjured up term you’ve never heard before.

Then they’ll debate whether an organization should have social marketing guidelines for employees, no matter how basic or detailed, or if an organization should give employees complete social marketing freedom.

Next, the social marketing experts will tell you that your brand MUST be on Facebook, Ning, Twitter, LinkedIn and/or MySpace.  And some will guarantee you 10,000 followers or fans or friends within 30 days!

These same social marketing experts will laser focus on HOW to use social marketing tools and social media sites.

What you’re likely to not hear these “experts” talk about is aligning social marketing with your business objectives, integrating your social marketing with your overall marketing strategy, conducting listening sessions, tracking and measuring your social marketing efforts historically and moving forward, developing a community for your brand, engaging with customers, using customer feedback in your product and service development process and ensuring customer service is directly involved in social marketing.

Social marketing isn’t about quantity.  An arbitrary follower/friend/fan count should never be your social marketing goal.  Of course, having thousands or millions of followers/friends/fans is great, but quantity here doesn’t necessarily translate to real customers and real sales.  Social marketing is about quality communication with your customers.  It’s a faster and more transparent way to engage prospects and customers from a marketing, customer service and product/service development standpoint, and is often a portion of a larger integrated strategy.

Never forget that the goal of any marketing is a sale (of course, a profitable sale from a long-term customer with a measurable lifetime revenue and profit stream).  It’s just that saying “your marketing goal is a sale” is a lot more simple and easier to remember.

What social marketing should help you do is turn a sale into a long-term customer relationship, and help that customer help you attract more customers, and so on.

In business, that’s a wonderful life.

However, no matter what the experts tell you, success is never a guarantee.

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December 16, 2009

Toys R Us Demonstrates How to Turn Current Customers into Former Customers

I ordered a big dollhouse from Toys R Us online.  It arrived on my doorstep in a giant box with a huge full-color picture of the dollhouse and accessories on the side of the box.  It wasn’t shipped in a plain cardboard box, no, it had to be a box that showed the entire world what was inside.

Now, why would a toy company ship toys right before Christmas in a box like this?  The future recipients of this toy nearly saw the box and ruined their Christmas morning surprise.  It was a true Christmas miracle that they looked out the wrong window when the delivery man rang the doorbell, and another miracle entirely that they didn’t open the door and see the box.

I emailed a complaint to Toys R Us customer service.  Nowhere on the site does it state that the dollhouse would be shipped in a box with a picture of the contents on the side (I triple checked before sending the email).  The site did state that gift wrap wasn’t available (I didn’t want it gift wrapped anyway).  It also stated that the item would be shipped separately.

Now, when a customer takes the time to complain, you owe it to them, as the business, to respond in a thoughtful and considerate manner, especially when the customer points out a real error.

The customer service rep’s first instinct shouldn’t be to patronize the customer, tell the customer that the website has fine print that they obviously didn’t read (especially when that fine print doesn’t exist at all), and that you’ve exhausted everything you could possibly do for them (especially when you did nothing since that customer could tell you were reading the email for the first time while on the phone).  The rep’s sarcastic tone didn’t help either, especially with someone long schooled in the fine art of sarcasm.

I didn’t want a refund or a free toy.  I wanted the company shipping toys before Christmas to realize how stupid it is to ship a toy in a box that doesn’t hide the contents of the box from anyone who might see that box.  A simple “I apologize” would have been sufficient.  Even better would have been: “We’ll update the shipping information on the site to explain how the item is shipped.”

Instead, your botched customer service call turned my basic frustration into a personal commitment to boycott Toys R Us.

Bah Humbug, Geoffrey the Giraffe.

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December 7, 2009

Blowing Marketing Bubbles with Trouble Gum

I’m a fan of Matthew Cordell’s work in general, and specifically his first book as both author and illustrator, Trouble Gum.  I stumbled upon Matthew’s work a couple years ago when I was checking out the snowflakes for Robert’s Snow, a charity event where children’s book illustrators create unique snowflakes to be auctioned off for charity.  I really liked Matthew’s snowflake featuring children in their winter knit hats.

His style reminds me of William Steig of Shrek fame.  Wonderful pen and ink drawings with a scribble and doodle sensibility that adds a lot of warmth and interest.

What does all of this have to do with marketing?  Good question.  You see, Matthew, like a lot of writers, illustrators and artists, is deftly using marketing in general and social marketing specifically to cultivate an audience, drive sales and build long-term relationships with fans.  Major brands could learn a lot from someone like Matthew.

Once I recognized that I enjoyed his work, I started to periodically read Matthew’s blog where he provides insights into his in-progress projects, discusses his motivations, gives behind the scenes glimpses into his development process, talks about his family, and gives his audience a depth of information that you can’t get from a book’s dust jacket.  Social marketing gives writers and artists the power to grow their own fan base and build important relationships with their individual fans.

Matthew runs contests to build traffic to his blog, to generate buzz and to promote his work.

I happened to win a couple of those contests.  In the first, I won an original drawing from his book Trouble Gum.  Besides the drawing, he sent me a nice handwritten note and copies of promotional postcards from his other books.  I must say that I was very excited to receive this amazing prize.

In the other contest, I won a couple packs of promotional gum called Trouble Gum.  The packs were an ingenious promotional giveaway developed by Matthew and his publisher to promote his book at various events.

So, Matthew is building his brand, his audience and his business through hands-on, personable and memorable interactions with his books, his artwork, his website, his blog, his contests and his willingness to share himself with his fans.

He’s a growing marketing machine in the world of children’s literature and he’s doing it well.

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November 10, 2009

Social Media Delivers Patrons to Today’s Artists and Writers

I was always fascinated by the fact that thinkers, inventors and artists like DaVinci had patrons, someone to pay the bills and worry about the little, annoying and boring details while the artist was free to dream, create and innovate.

The internet and social media today provide a perfect platform for artists to cultivate their followers, customers and now their own patrons.  Take for example Jamie Tanner, a graphic novelist.  Now, I don’t know Jamie or anything about his art, but I was struck by the ingenuity of the fund-raising program he developed for his future project.  Not only is Jamie asking his audience for money to fund his new project, but he’s offering fantastic rewards from sketch books and original art to inclusion in the new project as a named character, like a version of product placement for individuals instead of big brands.  Maybe this can be termed “personal placement” instead.

This isn’t the first instance of online fund-raising by a writer or artist, but it’s certainly an ingenious one.  Jamie should be applauded for his efforts, and for the fact that he’s already exceeded his fund-raising goal.

The artist and the audience are both winners here.

The artist can secure funding upfront for a project instead of relying on income once the project is completed and released to the marketplace.  The potential pain of self-funding a project is gone.  The artist can also involve the audience in the project early on and make the overall project more of a collaboration by building a bond between the audience and project itself right from the start.  Any interested parties would definitely enjoy the behind the scenes views of a work-in-progress.

The audience not only gets the joy of being involved in a project right from the beginning, but can actually become a part of the work.  What could be better than becoming a character in your favorite author’s new book?  Amazing.

And, again for the artist, building stronger relationships with your audience is key in this continually fragmenting, long-tail marketplace.  Instead of attracting a huge audience for your work by catering to the needs or desires of everyone (and thereby watering down your product), you only need to attract a small, passionate following to develop a wildly successful career.

 

 

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November 2, 2009

Fly Marketing is Surprise Marketing

Eichborn, a German publisher with a fly for a logo, attached very tiny, ultra-light banners to 200 flies to promote their booth at the Frankfurt Book Fair.  These flies were like a fleet of miniature airplanes dragging promotional banners through the skies of the fair.

You can find a video of the promotion (and the reactions of the crowd) at www.eichborn.de or on YouTube.

This is another fantastic example of surprise marketing done right–use a unique and humorous approach to knock people out of their routine and get them to take notice and talk about your brand.

Well done, Eichborn.

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September 22, 2009

How to Improve Yoplait’s Save Lids to Save Lives Program

I grabbed a Yoplait yogurt out of my fridge and couldn’t help but notice the pink lid.  Yes, Yoplait is running their pink lid “Save Lids to Save Lives” campaign in support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.  I’m a big supporter of breast cancer awareness and the search for a cure.  I’ve had friends and family with breast cancer, so I’ve seen first hand how breast cancer dramatically affected their lives and their families.

I’m also a huge supporter of corporations making donations to charity.  Most charities would be hard-pressed to provide their services without the valued corporate support.

What I don’t like is the hoops some companies make consumers jump through to support the corporation’s charitable donation.  Yoplait, for example, will donate 10 cents for every pink lid mailed in by consumers.  So, I need to buy Yoplait yogurt, save the lids, wash the lids, put them in an envelope and mail them to Yoplait?  Then, someone at Yoplait is going to open the envelopes, count the lids and approve the corresponding donation?  Seems like a lot of unnecessary time and money to support the search for a breast cancer cure.

Yes, I know, it’s a little time and effort on my part when so many women are battling cancer and fighting for their lives.  And their families and friends are suffering as well.  Trust me, I understand and I sympathize.

My point is that companies like Yoplait, who obviously hope they sell more yogurt because of their charitable donation, should make it easier for consumers to boost the donation amount. (I’d like to know if Yoplait’s sales or market share increase during the donation period anyway.)  Yoplait says they’ll donate at least $500,000, but based on the number of lids they receive, they’ll donate up to $1.5 million.

Why not give consumers an online mechanism where they can key in a donation code from each purchased container? It’ll save all the time and money from the current process.  Keep the pink lids for marketing the program and for the donation code.

Or, why not provide a matching program where consumers can donate to the charity through Yoplait.com, and Yoplait will match the donations up to $1.5 million?  Then, the charity will receive $3 million or more in donations, instead of between $500,000 and $1.5 million.  Forget the whole lid redemption process, but keep the pink lids for marketing the program.

With social marketing and digital marketing available, why does Yoplait continue to cling to the lid redemption process?  A new approach could increase awareness of the program and increase the overall donations going to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

And, Yoplait just might sell more yogurt, too.

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September 21, 2009

Can you really be private online?

Online privacy is a real concern for most people, more so as social networking becomes mainstream and keeps a detailed record of everything about us.  If you take online privacy seriously, then you’ve likely set yourself some stringent privacy settings on sites like Facebook and MySpace, and you’re careful about your Twitter updates and the information you load into LinkedIn.

Unfortunately, as a recent MIT project shows, you have little control over what someone can learn about you simply from the data you choose to share online.  The MIT project, Project Gaydar, was accurately predicting which males were homosexual simply based on their Facebook friends.  Sure, some of these males likely are already comfortable and upfront about their homosexuality, but in the case of others, they may be trying to hide their homosexuality for any variety of reasons.

There’s a quickly evolving field of social network analysis that points to some potentially troubling privacy concerns for social network users.  Your online connections, links and friends may tell someone more about you than you’d normally be willing to share.  Prospective employers, charity groups, civic groups, political groups and other institutions may be able to make predictions about you–and ultimately decisions about you–without even asking you a single question.

Will the field of social network analysis cause a social networking backlash, or will we all accept the idea that our connections and friends could be used to make assumptions or predictions about us?  Will new laws be required to keep employers from making predictions about job applicants based on a social network analysis?  Will a social network analysis be conducted for prominent politicians and used against them during campaigns?

Funny…the social effects of social networking are only just beginning to be discovered.

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September 20, 2009

Are You Marketing to Yourself?

It’s very easy to believe that you absolutely know how, when and where best to reach your customers and prospects with your marketing messages.  Especially after many years of experience with a specific marketplace, you can easily fall into the trap of assumptions and generally accepted truths.

I’ve encountered numerous clients and corporate colleagues who fell into this trap:

“We don’t need a website.  Our customers don’t go online.”

“Why would we send an email when we can send a fax or mail a postcard?  Most of our clients don’t have email.”

“We don’t need an eCommerce site because people in our industry don’t shop online.”

“We don’t need to be on Facebook because that’s for kids.”

“Twitter?  Is that real?  Never heard of it.  None of our consumers would ever use that.”

Change can be unsettling and frightening.  It seems that a new technology pops up every week and it’s a lot of work to figure out how or why to understand its potential marketing opportunities.  It takes a lot less effort to dismiss the new and different, and claim to understand the needs, motivations and behaviors of the marketplace, consumers, clients and prospects.  It’s easy to market to yourself.

If I don’t shop online, then my customers must not do it either.

If I’ve never used Twitter, then it must not be an important marketing tool.

My kids use Facebook and I don’t sell kid stuff, so Facebook is not important for my business.

It takes a lot more work to do the research, conduct interviews, read reports, look at graphs, participate in meetings, conferences, panel discussions and other conversations to stay on top of the changes happening in your business and in your marketplace.

You’re not marketing to yourself.

You’re marketing to your customers and your prospects. You need to figure out how best to market to them, and that takes a lot of effort and a lot of testing.

If it was supposed to be easy, then you wouldn’t get paid to do it.

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September 1, 2009

Who wants to be the next Matt Drudge?

If you’re starting a blog to develop your own online cash cow, well get in line.  There are thousands of people already in line ahead of you.  Sure, it might happen, and I wish you the greatest luck and success.  Truly.

Somewhere in the online abyss I read some rules for making money at blogging.  One of the rules was to never blog about something that was more than a few hours old since the news item would already have been spread throughout the interwebs and considered old news by most people.  Further, you should only focus on the newest bits of news and get it on your blog ASAP.

This is a great rule if you want to be the next Matt Drudge.  Most people either don’t want to be Matt Drudge or don’t have the ability to be him.

Most people start a blog to share their opinions and experiences with the world.  Maybe not even the whole world, maybe just a thin slice of it.

The best focus for a news blog is the local market.  Local news isn’t covered well online, and the coverage is getting worse and worse for local events on TV and in print.

The best focus for most blogs is a niche market…a blog focused on midwest artists or northwest poets for example.  There are a lot of niches without good coverage online that have a ready and willing audience.   The audience may not be extensive, but they’ll be focused and loyal if your content is compelling and if you invite them in.

Monetizing a niche may be difficult or impossible, but it may very well become a great side venture for you.  And, maybe one day it will become profitable enough to become your full-time job.  Although, sometimes a hobby is better than a job.

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