By now we all know that the day of the banner ad is past and that the formula for social marketing is being created by us. Here. Now. I believe that this reality is forcing the profession of marketing to change and that the successful marketers of the future will be leaders in their organizations, using not just communications techniques, but deploying social marketing campaigns that provide real social value all by themselves. In other words, if the recipient never takes your call to action, they would still have acquired value from you.
The very nature of that statement seems counter-intuitive to many marketers. What? Provide real value without them paying for it? Like it or not, as the age of message bombardment passes and the social sale becomes more prevalent, marketers will need to provide social value simply to get people's attention, to prove their good will and to demonstrate that they really understand customer needs and motivations.
This latter point cannot be overemphasized. Marketers used to get away with general messages and campaigns promising a benefit or two. No more. Now our efforts must demonstrate - based on insights gained from analyzing transactional customer data as well as qualitative listening - that we understand customers' emotional and rational needs. It's not a one-size-fits-all world and customers know when we don't "get them." What's worse is that when they feel misunderstood, they're more likely than ever to complain about it, publicly. These principals of value delivery are the essential principles of relationship marketing that are staples of the corporate B2B sales force, and which we must now bring to mass B2B and B2C marketing situations. Luckily, we are finally being given the technology to do reasonably well.
Here are a few examples of initial forays into this strategic paradigm:
- (Update) Dell SWARM: Dell is using social principals to let groups negotiate down the price of laptops. For limited periods of time (e.g., three days), anyone can pick the laptop configuration of their choice and promote to others. The more people come in on the order, the lower the price goes. They even make it easy to advertise your configuration on Facebook to help promote! Only available in Singapore right now, this experiment in social buying goes beyond collective buying concepts of the past and turns individuals into social sales people. What is the social value to the individuals involved in Dell's new marketing process? Choosing and buying become a social activity online. Even if you don't go in on the purchase, the fact that your friend is participating in a SWARM may be of interest for you in your own product research and evaluation efforts and you certainly will pick up Dell's branding in the process.
- Charmin's SitorSquat.com: An evolution of P&G's successful community strategy for teenage girls, BeingGirl.com (as documented in Forrester's Groundswell to be four times more effective than traditional advertising for selling tampons), SitorSquat provides a valuable find-a-toilet service to mobile phone users on the go (and who need to go). It also provides a swapping venue for bathroom humor. Jury's out on how well it will take off as a social site, but at least the combination of personal functionality, crowdsourced information (rate your toilet experience) and social features holds the promise that it may become largely self-maintained and provide Charmin with a brand loyalty foundation for bathroom users everywhere. (I wish I had a more upscale example, but it demonstrates the principal.)
- Facebook Causes - Birthday Wish Campaigns: Causes newest tool turns the average Facebook user turning a year older into a mini fundraising powerhouse, encouraging friends to donate instead of give, and (importantly) providing them the tools to organize their social campaign for their friends list.
- Sony's Resistance2018: Sony has created a game on Twitter to promote its newest Terminator movie and video game. While it's not the first advergame ever, it's one of the first, fastest and least expensive social games to pop up and reportedly is fun (not being a gamer, I don't really have an opinion myself - I am SO not the target of this campaign.)
Providing value through a marketing campaign is not new. Strategies for value marketing includes free samples and qualification surveys that tell the consumer something about himself (but tells the company more). The most common value-delivery strategy in the traditional paradigm is sponsorship, wherein the marketer provides financial or other support in exchange for visibility. The people that enjoyed the benefits of the sponsored event/service - the social, educational or entertainment value - might or might not attribute their enjoyment to the sponsor, but at least they got blasted with the sponsor's message along the way. Sponsorship isn't always very efficient from an ROI point of view, but traditionally it's been cheaper than paying for the whole event/service yourself.
The social web has changed the business model of sponsorship by reducing the costs to produce certain types of online events, services and social applications. When the advertiser can develop the thing that provides value up front, why let others get the credit? And what's even better, because the value can be delivered in a social context, letting your audience create content as well as share, refer and virally grow the community, the overall cost of maintaining and marketing it can be cost-effective because your audience does a lot of the work.
So are you all jazzed about making a cool little social app for your product? Coolio. Go forth and valufy! But beware the pitfalls of social web and don't make the mistakes so many marketers before you have made. I won't reiterate all the oopses even some of the biggest brands have blundered into, but it will boil down to this: if you are not genuine, accountable and tuned into your customers you will fail. By contrast, if you listen, invite your customers into the marketing experience and change your concept of "brand control" to invite your customers and employees into "brand creation" you may very well succeed to the point that your customers do much of your marketing for you simply by participating and inviting their friends into the experience.
What's the ROI on this strategy? It's as unique as the application and customer segment you address so you'll have to figure that out for yourself; and I admit, sometimes an ROI just isn't there for a social app, so don't force it. You can pay consultants to bring a valuable outside perspect to help you, but in the end it is you that must understand your customer base well enough to serve them through your marketing efforts; the best consultants will encourage you to invite your customers into the conversation up front to increase your knowledge and sensitivity. Be genuine in your outreach, tolerant of mistakes and enthusiastic in your desire to serve them even before selling them and you have the best chance of success.
Some marketers will be excited by reading this post, others will be uncomfortable. If you're unsettled, be honest and ask yourself if the concept of actually creating value, not "marketing value" but "customer value," is uncomfortable. If so, don't despair. Many marketers have been trained to talk about the value that others provide (your product folks or your customer service department, for example). We call this talking-about skill 'communications'. Not so many of us have been trained (or funded) to actually provide value in the awareness process itself, and if we were, it was an entertainment value, a sexy or funny communications that grabbed someone's attention. But the communications-only value of marketing is quickly diminishing as affordable tools put the entire Internet population in the entertainment business along with us. The marketing department now needs to pull its weight along with the rest of the company to provide value to the customer, even when they're just a prospect.
This is the challenge for the 21st Century marketer, to add more and more customer value to the marketing process so that customers get pulled into relationship with you smoothly and enthusiastically. To the extent your management doesn't understand this concept of marketing yet, you'll have to help educate them. It's a big job but don't despair, jump in and help redefine the profession of marketing. It's an exciting time!
