SOCIAL MARKETING – New Kid on the Block ?

 

Social Media Marketing is the new buzz word in the marketing circles. 67% of marketers want to do Social Media. There are consultant mushrooming all over the countryside specializing in Social Marketing. There are statistical numbers being generated 35% no 51% of people trust opinion from their fellows then the might critic in the news papers who languishes at paltry 10% (and you were planning to fly him Business class to HQ). And lo and behold, all that money that you spent on advertisements, well actually only 30% of the audience believes you or your advertisement across Radio/TV/Cinema Hall.

Did I hear you say, that is why we moved to Online advertisements. Would you like to know efficacy of those Search Engine Ads, Online Videos and Online banner ads. 4%, 3% and 3% respectively.

 

Picture turns pretty dismal when you start looking at the other end of the graph i.e. people who do not trust and suddenly all your marketing strategy seems like Big waste of money and time.

In light of all these, Social Media comes as the manna for the dying. Thus we find the 67% wanting to “do Social Media”. What does the marketer do ? He devices an aggressive Social Media Plan for the next quarter with even more aggressive numbers. He wants people to listen to him and his company.

Approach to Social Media is blow your own trumpet just the same as one was doing on the other medium.

Will this ME centric approach succeed? Are we not forgetting the basics? We seem to equate Social Media with the other medium and have forgotten to understand the very basic reason of why Social Media sites not just exist but are thriving.

Let us examine this ?

What is Social?

The term Social refers to a characteristic of living organisms (humans in particular, though biologists also apply the term to populations of other animals). It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary.

Term “social” is used in many different senses referring among other things to:

Attitudes, orientations, or behaviours which take the interests, intentions, or needs of other people into account (in contrast to anti-social behaviour);has played some role in defining the idea or the principle.

What are Social Needs?

An excellent  representation of Social Needs is using Maslow’s hierarchy

 

Thus needs have been classified and also ranked according to a person’s stage. A person who has basic Physiological Needs is not necessarily looking for Respect. Either his need is satiated or his need has been extinguished for him to move up the chain.

19th Century Man

Let us now examine the 19th Century Man. The world of a 19th Century human was centred around his village or town. He worked in the perimeter of his village, his needs were satisfied by the fellow villagers. For most of the people their self esteem was centred around recognition by the village elders or the village squire, their friends were from the childhood and more often then not he married within walking distance. His doctor or healer was also nearby.

Centre of this universe was the Village Square. One could get the pulse of the village and also the rumour of the village right then and there. Who has landed a plum deal or who is dating whom or who is suffering from viral fever or whose child has flunked his 5th examination were all available

  

And the marketer of 19th  Century was on the Village Square talking to his clientele in the local lingo, using the local props and discussing man to man for his needs and requirement and also to his peers addressing their concerns and queries. Any purchase decision was made in accordance with the comments and views of the members of the Social Network

This was the Social Network to which a person subscribed and companies sold to.

Cut the chase to here and present.

21 Century 

 

More and more people are moving out of their parental homes and taking up education and employment across the globe. It is easy not difficult for buddies of school to be working in not just two different provinces of a country but also across time zones in two different countries.

 

 

Hence the need arose for better communication tools for people to communicate and a phone would not suffice as night for one would be day for another. Internet became the medium of the century and people started using strictly offline communication mode of email. Limitation of email was it was a hub and spoke model in the sense originator and receiver were the only ones connected onto the communication and was also limited in terms of visibility in terms of Social updates one would associate with Social Networking like family updates or photo graph sharing. For the receiver it was also intrusive, let us face it I may be friends with Mr. John Doe but may not be interested in pictures of his first child drooling over his living room rug but via mail I could not restrict what I got from him without offending him.

Online Social Networks like Facebook owe their success to Social Needs. Here was a medium where I could do my posts in an unobtrusive way, post photographs which my contacts could access at their convenience and their wishes. I could also seek out the opinion of my peer group on whether to buy the iPAD or the Netbook. Could also check out where to get the free ebook downloads for my Kindle. And share this with the larger community at large without actually intruding on someone else’s time or mail box.

One started to connect to a social group which was beyond one’s geographical  location and started interacting. Next thing to happen was congregation of people with similar interests or hobbies from within the extended Community. I may be connected to 1000 people but amongst them and why just them over a extended world community it became easy for me to connect with say Diabetics across the globe. Or for a photography buffs to connect. Discussions on these forums were around the specific interest group.

SOCIAL MARKETING

Would Social Media marketing also work the way traditional mediums work, put in an advertisement or an editorial implant?

Let me ask you a simple question. You move houses to a new city and want to make new friends, can you do this instantly? Do you ring the doorbell to your next door neighbour and expect him to be best of the buddies with you? In my view NO, you may make acquaintance with your neighbour or your professional colleagues but it takes time for you to open up and also to trust the other guy. Yeah, you may take the mundane daily chores advise around finding the household maid or location of super store for buying groceries.   

Why would the other guy also trust you or what you say? he is also evaluating you, your trust and your company. Doesn’t it happen that we do not get along with a push over, someone who tries to thrust his opinion upon us or tries to lead us.

Most companies in their zeal or may be due to background of aggressive product based marketing forgot that the dynamics of Social interaction. We first need to listen in to a conversation for us to make useful contribution. And so it should be with Social Marketing.

STEP 1 : Please listen to the conversation. Get the drift…

STEP 2 : Offer timely and useful advice on the forums. Just the same way as you would do to a new found friend. Make sure that what you saying is meeting some need of the recipient and not just a rejoinder or a blank bullet with no real concern. Empathy can not just be seen but can also be heard and read.

STEP 3: If you are out of depth on a particular topic, listen and learn. Many times we would learn something new if only we were listening for content and not for an entry to conversation. Who knows you may get a great idea for a new product or a new killer feature for your product.

STEP 4: Once you have build trust and credibility then only try to market your advice or your product.

STEP 5: Listen, participate and adapt. May be the group does not want to hear what you are saying or the way you are saying or the timing is off. You will make mistakes but then that is a sure way of learning things.

Some statistics on FACEBOOK

 

Number of Users in India : 11.5M

Male Members : 7.9M 

Female Members : 3.6

Facebook Users in India have doubled in 6 months

31% of Indians on Facebook are 18-34 years old

The Key to Success on FACEBOOK

Is not what you know, BUT who you know and who knows you

Social Media Marketing Does Not Work In India

 

I have come across Marketing Managers stating that Social Media does not help at all. That customers do not make marketing decisions on the basis of information on Social Media.

Some arguments that are thrown in favour of this statement are :

1. Social Media is not used by Indians

People in India do not use Social Media but are on the internet and visit the various company sites or research or review sites

One only needs to have a look at some statistics on Facebook usage at http://www.facebakers.com/countries-with-facebook/IN/

Number of Users : 9.5 Million and growing

Male Users : 6.5 M and Female Users : 2.9M

User Growth – Facebook India

Penetration of Social Media is 0.84% against an online penetration of 11.8%

However this needs to be weighed in against the fact that Facebook User Base in India has doubled from 4.7M to 9.5M in last six months!!!

This data point itself brings us to a conclusion that this is the fastest growing medium.

2. My Target Customers Are Not on Social Media

We should ask the customer to qualify who their Target Customers are

If it is men, 6.5M of them are on Facebook and there are 2.9M women using Facebook in India.

And both the genders have had 100% growth in the last six months.

User Age Distribution – Facebook India

78% of the Facebook Users are in the Age segment of 18-34 years. If one were to add the 35-44 years group to this we would get to 86% of 9.5M.

This age group is largest buyer for most products and services.  

And for those targeting the young ones, we would suggest them to look at the statistics for age groups 13-15 and 16-17 which account for 9% of the total users.

Point to be noted here is that these two are the fastest growing Age segments on Facebook.

Choice is very clear, you want to be where your current customer is and where your next base of customers is going to be.

3. Social Media is Not Useful in Impacting buyer behaviour

Customers do not make purchasing decisions basis of Social Media or Social Network but after going through company and product information in Advertisments (print/television/billboards, Reviews,or Online Banner Ads).

Guess what collectively ONLY 30% of the respondents to a Nielson Online Survey in 2009 said they TRUSTED COMPLETELY” these sources.

And an overwhelming 34% Trust the recommendations of people they know and add to that Consumer opinions posted online as a trust source at 13%. Individually both of them seem to fare better than the Editorial content such as newspaper article which is at 10% and is supposed to be from an informed source.

4. What, allow for users to write negative about me ???

Should I be giving a ready made platform to disgruntled users to write against me? All the negative comments they have will be in the public eye? My company would be ruined ?

Fact is platform exists and people are using it to pass judgments. You are either gaining or loosing customers by no action. Would you rather be a blind mice or play the game ?

If a complaint is raised publicly, it gives you an opportunity to address it publicly thus setting an example of customer care and responsiveness to the audience.  Even if the customer is a trouble maker, you still have made a positive impact on others by your effort.

At times your satisfied customer who comes to your defence and what is better testimonial then that ?

5. Social Media is Hard, Tough and Slow

I want results and I want them now, this quarter? My management is not interested in something that will take ages to and anyways is doubtful as I can not measure the impact.

If one were to follow the guidance of international marketers, discussion about the impact of Social Media is off the table. Yes, it does not subscribe to the traditional methods of measurements and new skills need to be learned by the Marketing Manager.

Simplest would be the traffic driven to your website from Social Media Sites and the behaviour pattern of these users.

We are not stating that replace Traditional Media with Social Media, we are saying ADD this to your existing arsenal. BY all means use the standard medium for short term goals.

Use this medium to build a community and to interact with them. Results are generated over longer term BUT are sustained and not flashes in the pane. Keep in mind that It is tougher to make a marriage work then a one night stand.

Services Pricing

 

Had an interesting discussion this week end with the Service Representative of a house cleaning service – Ashiana Home Care.

Ashiana is a service company which offers thorough house cleaning for a fee. They have priced themselves for a stand alone single service and also an annual contract for 4 services.

We were approached by their telemarketing team around a year back. We enrolled into the service contract for a year (4 services). We were by and large satisfied with the service of the company. Staff they sent for service was always well trained and worked at a quick pace while not being intrusive.

With all the positive experience we had, we thought of renewing the contract for the next one year. Service Executive was duly called and discussed the pricing with us. Net import of the discussion was –

1. It does not matter whether I am renewing a contract or signing a new one, the pricing remains the same.

2. Contract period is 12 months from the DAY I sign the contract and not from the day I get my first service done.

3. Net net if I do not get the 4 services done within 12 months from DAY I sign the contract I forfeit the amount.

I tried to reason with the person from Ashiana that this sounds illogical as I have got the service done TODAY and would only avail of the next service (or the first service of next year contract) around September and hence I would in fact be made to either miss one service or get four services done in a time frame of Nine months.

Also, the fact that I am a return or a renewal customer who should get advantage of continuance and thus should get a discount.

We also pointed out that it was us who told them about the expiry and were proactively asking for renewal. Response to that was – I have eight sites running on any given day and anyways it is for the customer to renew and not our responsibility. Tone, tenor and the body language of the Ashiana executive was reminiscent of the Government Employees of yonder, who used to treat citizen as a problem rather then a customer

In the process Ashiana

1. Lost a sale in a home account.

2. Lost the opportunity to book revenue ahead of delivery of service.

3. Have lost an active reference

4. has given us a chance to explore options and give them an entry into our condominium of 300 Apartments.

I sincerely hope that this is merely an oversight on the part of  the owner/manager of Ashiana. However the problem is compounded by the attitude of the Representative for whom the company’s policy is a gospel.

She could not even attempt to comprehend what a customer was stating. Her approach was either you give me a check or you don’t.

Since then we have evaluated options and we understand that we could get the same job done at around half of the cost of Ashiana. We have also told the person to build it as a service offering and proactively initiate engagement with residents of our condominium.

What happens to the Early Innovator – Ashiana, who introduced this service in Gurgaon, India – frankly dear, I don’t give a damn….  

CIO and Social Media

 

Deciding the technology platform for communication as well as business applications internal and external to a company used to be the exclusive preserve of IT department as a whole and the CIO in particular. CIO also used to preside over what he wanted the user to see or not see. It is no longer so, with the Software as a Service and Social media, a user or a subject matter expert is creeping into what was a controlled domain. For example, A CRM decision is now more of a discussion of functionality rather then the technology. Similarly, while the company portal may still be under the control of CIO but an astute Marketing Manager is either using or exploring Social Media as the backbone of his communication.

That said most CIOs love technology and possibilities of using newer offerings and solutions. One comes across a wide range of CIOs from conservative to early adopter, and this is not limited to their attitude to Social media alone but to any technology adoption. And a lot of time these decisions are based on practical consideration and good of the organisation they serve. Some of the concerns that CIOs raise when discussing Social Media are:

1. Productivity – Employees spending time on Social Media is seen as wasting time – the new Coffee machine. What is seen to be a cost effective and reliable medium of communication can easily be a drag on the productivity. How is an organisation to know if an employee is not breeding sheep on his farm but sending out official notes on Facebook?

2. Information – How does one control what is going out through these medium. WHAT IF it was company confidential information like a Launch Date or a Product detail. It could be an inadvertent statement from a user, something akin to forwarding a email outside of the company or leaving the next generation model of the phone on the bar stool.

3. Resources – This is a tough one how does one account for the network traffic generated from a Twitter or Facebook? I have to deliver performance to Business applications on the same network which are being used for these sites.

4. Business and Brand – An employee can twit away a thousand customers with a simple and innocent message. E.g. Product A has a known bug.

That said a realization is setting in that there could be business benefit driven out of Social Media at very minimal cost.

1. Communication to multiple locations or groups e.g. informing partners of the benefits or training program.

2. Excellent tool for real time feedback mechanism straight from the customer.

3. Influencing the behaviour of the target audience by generating exposure through social media

4. Increasing traffic to web sites and generating leads for the business

Marketing Changes (contd.)

What indeed does the CMO do to arrest this onslaught of the Anon. None of the Marketing Management Gurus had ever spoken about the rise of the masses. No one ever imagined that one day Reviews and Critics will be written by a virtual non entity  and would have the power to reach across to thousands and hundreds of people at the press of button.

Carefully crafted company personas and glossy product brochures shall be rendered useless by one unhappy customer or worse still his teenage son or daughter.

The Smart Marketer realised that on one side he is spending money to build personas and images and on the other paying more to conduct research on whether the market is acknowledging and accepting his creations. And while he is doing it, there is this Common Man who has the power to run havoc with his strategy and impacting where it hurts most – Revenue and Net Units Sold.

Our SM saws the way out of this impasse by redefining his own job and scope from Persuasive to Involving and Empowering. The age old adage – if you cant beat them join them came to the fore. He saw that a single medium can be used to create a Campaign and also get instant feedback directly from the end customer. He realised that such sites are encouraging groupings for their own targeted online marketing and also have other such options.

This brought about the concept of Social Media Marketing and usage of Social Media to connect to the end user directly for his feedback and also as a medium for introduction of the product or services.

Early adopters of Social Media made the mistake of treating it like a standard marketing tool and fascinated with the free aspect of the medium by sending a constant barrage of Product Information and not paying heed to the feedback provided. Also added ills were Unplanned approach to the medium, treating Social Media marketing like a hobby without assigning resources and not respecting the limits like 140 words on Twitter.

Some easy guides to managing social media are :

Don’t sound like PR or a Used Car Salesman

Participate and initiate discussions and not monologues

Engage the community then talk at them

Don’t indulge in falsification of Information

Censorships on comments and feedback are not welcome

Create a group or a page and don’t maintain it.

Not follow a schedule to management

Time commitment on an average required for a Social Media Campaign is around 50 hours/month. Add to that time for feedback gathering and responding.

Easy way out is to hire a Social Media Marketing firm. International rates for such agencies are around US$1000/month per media site.

Marketing – changes

 

In the good old days the job of a Marketer was simple – find the tallest roof top and shout at the top of your voice about your product and drown out your competition by your LUNG POWER. This was the traditional village seller of goods. Then came the age of the suave suites who talked about “media plan” and 4P’s of marketing. Lung Power got replaced with Advertisements, Hoardings, Whitepapers etc.

There were namesake reviews which used to be published in trade or business media. More often then not written by “professional” reviewers. One knew who the writers are and efforts were made to be on the right side of such writers and they were treated with kid gloves. Haven’t we all come across reviews starting with statements like “On my visit to so and so factory in such and such country…”

Times changed and internet happened, initially a tool for businesses to communicate with each other. Companies started using intranet to share information across their employees in REAL time. Also started websites and started posting information across the web for customer to reach out and access information. It no longer was a game of “shouting” but a game of “driving clicks”. People started talking in terms of “eyeballs”, click stream analysis to tell where a visitor is coming from and where he is going off to.

Then came another turn and Web 2.0 and Social Media. A lay or naive customer started writing about his experience with a product or service. What was the exclusive domain of “experts” or “vendors” started getting swamped by the “ignorant users”.

And lo and behold not just writing but people started taking these feedbacks seriously. To the extent that one of the agency surveys indicated that one negative Blog/Post could have a negative effect which would require 200 advertisements to counter. And remember here, the cost to the write of the NEGATIVE comment is ZERO.

Flip side is also true but to a lesser extent a positive comment impact equals 20 advertisements.

Your traditional marketer is now in a quandary over this. There is no competition here to be derided. One can not dismiss these comments a FUD or competition spread canard. How does one take on the faceless David in this battle. And adding voice and reach to the David and making a Goliath out of him are the Social Media sites such as Facebook, Linked In and Twitter.    

And worse still, the same gullible customer, who so far was taking “informed” decision based on the Marketer’s strategy, has started to believe in the ignoramus. People started talking about Peer groups and recommendations from contacts. Studies showed that 47% of buyers admitted to being influenced by Social Media and 26% said that they CHANGED their purchasing decision after reading on Social Media.

Suddenly the marketing budget was grossly inadequate to handle the all pervasive Social Media. How does one handle this ? What is the Chief Marketing Officer supposed to tell his CEO. That a faceless entity who is earning zero and spending zero is wiping away all the good done by his marketing team which spent millions and earned thousands…

Solution as a Service

I find the term Software as a Service limiting in nature and a fall back on the age old packaged software industry terminology. Hardware and Networking were assumed as a given for the customer and it was toe specific software like a CRM, ERP or DSS was supposed to be the “solution”.

When we look at what is on offer today is “Application on Taps” literally taking away the IT management from the customer. Customer is not meant to worry about the nuts and bolts read servers and routers of the solution on offer. And rightly so, how many of us bother whether the Electricity flowing into my house is generated from Thermal Generator or Nuclear Generator so long as I am paying the right price for it and service expectations are met.

Key criterion on which a customer would be deciding his vendor of choice would be on Functionality, Uptime, Reliability and Security of Information. Functionality is an age old concept for Application vendors and they have always employed “Subject Matter Expert’s” to answer or explain themselves eloquently. However the functionality discussions assume a different solor when one is talking about the basic applications such as Office Automation Suites. I, as a user,  may want to utilize various aspects of a presentation software such as builds or inclusive audio and video whereas another may be happy using just the charts and some amount of visuals in his slides.

The security aspects are usually well covered by the Applications and Database vendors through their explanations on Data Encryption at source and decryption at target. Various security functionalities built into applications that help avoid hacking or data theft, both internal as well as external.

It is the discussions around the Uptimes (RTO and RPO) which fox most software companies entering into the word of SaaS. Simply put RTO is Recovery Time Objective – how long are you willing to live with an outage and RPO is Recovery Point Objective –   how far back are you willing to lose data in case of a calamity. In other words if you take a back up every day at 6 PM and your system crashes at 4 PM next day, you lose all the data for the last 22 hours.

How does one go about pricing for Saas?

Traditional software pricing worked on the model of packaged software in the manner that the functionality is available at your finger tips to use and is included in the pricing. Whether to use or not use is user discretion or function in the organization. Pricing depended upon what is packaged and not on what is used. On top of the base “License fee” companies also had an assurance pricing which is like a insurance policy for the customer to safe guard against future upgrades and updates and additional functionality.

SaaS (Software as a Service) pricing is easy, right? Offer a low priced product, sell to a thousand customers and make money. Looks simple – unfortunately, pricing a SaaS offering can be daunting for companies, especially when you want to deliver value as well as volume. Key questions to ask for setting up a pricing:

Does one charge the same for a power user versus a viewer?

What about the Security levels? Is it the same pricing for someone who wants a “trusted” level security to someone willing to look at base level user login security?

Do we charge a premium for RTOs and RPOs?

Spare a thought for the person who is willing to look at the “raw” application versus the customization.

And to top it all is the basic requirement of your business to meet its Cash Flow commitments. Remember you got to pay for the infrastructure, compensation, sales force etc.

Solution to all these would be to remember that one is no longer in the business of selling a software BUT is a utility provider and price thus. Arrive at the basic services that the market will accept and also what is on offer from competitors, it would do well to think through at this time on what would be the USP or Unique Selling Proposition for the basic service would be.

These could be priced at a base fee arrived after taking into consideration cost allocation, compensation etc. while also keeping in view the market dynamics. Additional functionality or security or uptime requirements can be added as a top up. Your Telephone Company does this all the time, don’t they? Though, the challenge is standardization of the services and terminology in IT Industry, with everyone having their own TLAs (three letter acronym).

How about the route to market?

Just because we have a service on offer does not mean users will sign up. One of the routes that traditional IT companies and more so the software vendors have employed is through Channels or Partners. Industry classified them into varied categories according loose definitions as Distributors, ISVs, Resellers, Systems Integrators or Value Added Reseller.

In a classical IT model ISVs, Sis and VARS had a role to play beyond just the commercial transaction and relationship management. They would be involved in the technology and functionality aspect of the solution. And they are the ones who find it difficult to align with the SaaS aspiration of the vendor companies with whom they have done business in the classic model. At the same time the SaaS vendor who has transacted business traditionally through ISVs, VARs or Sis is also grappling with the challenge of including these partners in the future business plans.

How does the vendor make sure that partners are making money? How does vendor involve the partner in customer management or solution management? Traditional model was straight forward and inclusive for these sets of partners while excluding the non technical suppliers of the same customer.

When we look at the partner role as the facilitator of business and not a technology intermediary the whole Pandora’s Box is opened. Now potentially an IT Solution could be front ended to a hospital by a supplier of drugs or laundry or such products. Partner’s role becomes customer or industry centric rather than an IT Industry insider.

This would potentially change the way industry looks at partnering and newer Programs need to be developed to meet the changed face of the industry. Anyone game?

Jugaad

I have come across a few articles and news items on “Jugaad” as a Business Strategy and Consulting Opportunity. Jugaad is hindi word for Innovation within the constraints. Companies such as Cisco and Oracle etc. have professed about using Jugaad to address end customer situations or improving internal efficiencies.

Jugaad is Constraint Based Execution to solve a problem. Most consultants profess Jugaad to be a short term solution to a problem. One need only look at the makeshift transport vehicle also called “Jugaad” on the roads of Punjab, which has been running for decades and acts as fast (faster than bullock cart) public transport. There is an entire localized automobile industry which had developed around the Jugaad auto.

Another example of Jugaad is the power invertors used in most houses in India to provide for power when the grid power is switched off. This device does not provide full power but provides for sustainable power and charges when the supply is restored.  Again there is an entire industry that has burgeoned around this product and there are innovations being made to the product to run heavy duty white goods like ACs and Refrigerators. So safely one could say Jugaad squared.

These innovations have come about because of the need and also availability of the alternate technology. While the government may frown at the vehicle, not meeting safety or emission standards etc. it serves its customer base. Very efficiently while not transporting people by irrigating their fields. Innovation leads to utilization of asset to the full capacity while making use of the idol time.

Let us now examine applying the same to business –

First examine the goals of a business

1. 1. To retain existing customers
2. 2. To enter new markets
3. 3. Doing the first two while managing its internal costs.

Organisations are constantly working to achieve the above three to increase the Return on the Equity. We get to hear of various programs and initiatives such as Six Sigma and Process Improvement or Sales Force Efficiency Improvement to improve the company performance on these parameters. Common examples are the so called CRM tools being used by various companies to improve sales force efficiency. These are launched with a lot of fan fare and millions of dollars of investment and then come a cropper. One would hear the sales folks complain about the time it takes to update the tool and how it is a non revenue/desk tied exercise which is pointless. On the other hand the Management would complain about the inaccuracies that creep in due to “lack of discipline” of sales force. A simple JUGAAD solution to the problem is a standard spreadsheet with a companywide standard language and rules for forecasting. Couple this with “no forecast/no commission” and you are all set for a valid and accurate forecast with no investment at all.

Jugaad is not a consulting assignment but a practical bare bones solution to a problem or concern and has to be treated thus. Applying it as a third party consultancy would accord it overheads of a typical consulting project and also the pitfalls associated to the same. Best suited people to solve a problem are the people grappling with it on a day to day basis and not external folks.

Sales and Empowerment

Weekend started with two very contrasting experiences for me.

First one was at an international brand name designer store situated in one of the swanky malls of the BPO Capital of India. Very well lit store, amply stocked store which was spotless clean (well, with the exception of one sad little bucket to catch air con leakage, mind you, no sign for wet floor or caution). Only thing missing was any sign of life form to help us out, that too in a store which had sizes in British. We found what we wanted to buy and also found the right size. Our search for life brought us to the cash counter and lo and behold we found three of them right there and that too human! Billing process was begun and after a brief time span of ten minutes (after all we had bought two pieces of clothing, worth Rs.5000  in a store that was bereft of any other customer across its two floors) good man behind the safety of counter had the brain wave that we should be accorded a “membership card”. Another ten minutes later he apologizes that he gave away the last card just three days back and next lot from “head office” will happen only in a fortnight. Would we be so kind as to shop again after that and then he can grant us the privilege of the card and ensuing points. Would the current amount be credited to that card? No Sir, since this purchase would be prior to the card issue date, it cannot be accounted for, company policy. Can the card be couriered as we have already filled your form out? No sir, it cannot be, it can only be handed over the counter- company policy. Can it be collected next time, we enter this mall? No sir, it is not company policy……

Contrast this with a Pharmacy, in the same BPO Capital. This time in a dingy old market, badly lit and finding a parking place is finding a meteor in the entire universe. A shop where one cannot move without stepping on someone’s toes and have to watch your breadth else the PYT in front of you would think you trying something on her “backless” back. Three store staffers all keen to establish eye contact with you the moment you enter. One of them practically shouts across the store, “Can I help you?” You ask for 5 mm disposable needles for Insulin pen. Next thing, he is asking you which brand of Insulin pen and would you need a replacement for it or cartridges for the same. How about the testing strips for your glucose monitor? Will you give me five minutes to make a loyalty card for you and also give my shop card for phone number, you see we home deliver till 11 pm in the night. My bill amount is a grand sum of Rs.100.

Which shop do you think I am likely to visit again and which one I would avoid, being spoilt for choices? Yes, you are right, the second one. Positive behavior from the attendant and desire to up sell on Rs.100 sale. A typical Diabetic’s medicine consumption could run north of Rs.1000 a month.

Why not the first one, some may ask? Well they did nothing to up sale or make a customer feel required, mind you I am not saying special, just required and not an intrusion. They hid behind the mahogany desk called company policy.

What makes the sales people perform differently in different companies? I am sure Mr.Rep1 was better paid and worked in better work environment and dealt with more educated people then our good Hand Man 2 at pharmacy shop.

Or was it something else? Was Mr.Rep1 afraid that he needs to perform within a big bunch of conditions and that following the policy was more important than the closure or retention of customer? In other was he made to feel small cog in large wheel with no stake or say in the running of the wheel except as a place holder?

How about our Handy Man 2? He reaches out, literally calls out to the man on the street, pushes for that extra effort and tries to increase the bill amount. Is it that, his company is doing something different, is it that he feels the power of a stakeholder or an important part of the machinery? Agreed that this machine too must be having boundary conditions or standard operating procedures but HE who is at the battle front is empowered to take a call on these conditions. I am sure they are winning some and losing some. But then they are moving as the saying goes a bad plan executed well is better than a brilliant plan botched up.

The difference is the EMPOWERMENT of Sales Person; remember he is your most important influencer for a sale. One may ask how one empowers the sales person. There are some very simple steps to this and no need for a three day off site for the Senior Managers of the company at a exotic location (sadly so, unless I am also invited). It also does not involve a huge CRM project costing millions.

1. 1. Make the sales people wanted in the company, respect them like people and not treat them like slot machines which give more when you put more. Slot machines are used for gambling in Vegas and I am fairly certain most of us do not want to run a business dependent upon these machines unless we are a casino, especially our shareholders will get mighty upset if they got to know of gamble.
2. 2. Provide them with basic information about their own company and not just the product. It should include the history, senior management and financials of the company. Please provide an update on a regular basis as though you are training on a new product. There is nothing more irritating than a sales person who does not know the name of his own CEO or his company’s Revenue figure for the last quarter.
3. 3. Train the sales person on the basics of a job. If he is on the floor in a men’s garment section, he should know about certain parameters and if he is in children’s section he should be equipped with a different skill set.
4. 4. Let the decision making on certain parameters be flexible to accommodate for a human judgment. While measurement of sales is a science but the process is an art and is performed differently by different artistes. Agreed, there may be some errors but then even Monalisa is not perfect.
5. 5. Use technology for the benefit of the sales team and not for the sake of technology. Use technology as a slave and not as the master. Remember, your sales person is selling when in the face of the customer and not when s/he is staring into a monitor. Choose your technology carefully, a detailed account plan with organsation structure may be par for a B2B company but the same may not be such a good idea for an Electronics Retail store. Ever come across a TV shop that takes 3 hours for billing as it needs to be generated from SAP online instance and link is down. Will a customer buying a TV worth Rs.120,000 waiting for the data link to go up or will s/he is walk down the corridor to Jumbo and buy the same set.
6. 6. Involve sales in product decision, they touch the customer on a regular basis and can be source of information rather than the elaborate market surveys done through anonymous agents.

Market, Medium and Mkt-ing

THEN own car was an aspiration and acquired after years of hard work. One had to book a car in advance and wait for 6 weeks for delivery from our trusty old Maruti.

NOW, no self respecting customer waits for cars and expects a immediate delivery. Options available today are from at least 10 different manufacturers.

THEN Communication was either Face to Face or over a Wired Line Telephone. Email was unheard of.Out side of office was out of work, one could switch off.

NOW Mobile phone calls are cheaper today then landline calls of 10 years back. You are always connected through email, social networking sites, and text messages. One is never disconnected and never switched off from work.

THEN Product information was sent out to customer as brochures !!!

NOW Customer reads about your products on your company’s website, reads reviews and consultant reports on their site. Reads about user experiences on blogs, social media etc.

Market place has changed and the approach to market also needs to change. Age old concept of sale was to be first of the block and aggressive approach to market and customers. Supplier was the king and demand always outstripped demand. Refer back to good old Maruti, customer did not choose the color or the delivery date; it was the Maruti Dealer who chose these for you. For my first car, I wanted a Marina Blue and was given n option to take a white or wait for an indefinite period of time (this was six weeks after 100% amount was paid to “book” the car).

With the changing times the function of Marketing has also had to go through a sea change. The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as “the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” Please note the key here is “Customer Requirements”.

Historical approach of Marketing was Product Orientation. It was the job of Marketing to Inform through aggressive communication about the availability of a product, its benefits above competition and then remind about the product benefits. The classical 4 P’s of marketing Product, Price, Placement and Promotion were to the fore.

Modern times, information is available at the click of a button. Sources for information have changed from a company published brochures to online websites, review sites and analyst pages. All this is available to customer at the click of a button. Modern day customer is not worried about supply as supply side has outstripped the demand and is more concerned with applicability of “Solution” and his scenario. In terms of feature and functions sets there is very little choose between products from various companies. We could say that marketing has evolved from Product Based Marketing to Customer orientation.

Product                                                 Solution

Promotion                                          Information

Price                                                      Value

Placement                                           Access

This has lead to the evolution of Marketing to Demonstrating the capability and applicability of a solution, involving the customer in the evolution and empowering him/her to make the favorable decision. A whole new paradigm to marketing has been introduced via the online medium. Customers can reach out to the peer group for views and feedback faster and in a more convenient manner then say a decade back. There are various Social media networking groups which are being used by customers for their research. Things like Facebook, Twitter, Linked IN and Blogs have changed the buyer behavior.

Social media is the fastest growing category on the Internet. According to some studies

70%        Read Blogs

55%        Join social networking

45%        Social media is influencing buying behavior

26%        have changed their mind about purchase decision after reading Social Media.

Peer opinion is 3 times more effective then the advertisements or company. One positive word of mouth is more effective then 200 adverts. A positive reference leads to 5 more enquiries and a negative word gets to 100 walk away.

Companies are using and can use Social media for

Creating exposure

Building partnerships

Generating Leads

Reduce marketing expense

How does one go about using Social Media?

Have a strategy in place, with goals and objectives

Establish presence

Expand Reach

Properly maintain the presence

What Are Social Media Sites

Twitter

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service itself costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

Twitter is ranked as one of the 50 most popular websites worldwide by Alexa’s web traffic analysis. Although estimates of the number of daily users vary because the company does not release the number of active accounts, a February 2009 Compete.com blog entry ranked Twitter as the third most used social network based on their count of 6 million unique monthly visitors and 55 million monthly visits. In March 2009, a Nielsen.com blog ranked Twitter as the fastest-growing site in the Member Communities category for February 2009. Twitter had a monthly growth of 1,382 percent, Zimbio of 240 percent, followed by Facebook with an increase of 228 percent. However, only 40 percent of Twitter’s users are retained.

As a social network, Twitter revolves around the principle of followers. When you choose to follow another Twitter user, that user’s tweets appear in reverse chronological order on your main Twitter page. If you follow 20 people, you’ll see a mix of tweets scrolling down the page: breakfast-cereal updates, interesting new links, music recommendations, even musings on the future of education.

San Antonio-based market research firm Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from the US and in English) over a 2-week period and separated them into six categories.

• News
• Spam
• Self-promotion
• Pointless babble
• Conversational
• Pass-along value

 

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The firm found that “pointless babble” was the largest category of Twitter content, making up 811 tweets or 40.55 percent of the total number of messages sampled.

Conversational messages accounted for 751 messages or 37.55 percent, tweets with “pass-along value” i.e. retweets – accounted for 174 messages or 8.70 percent, self-promotion by companies made up 117 tweets or 5.85 percent, spam was 75 tweets or 3.75 percent and tweets with news from mainstream media publications accounted for 72 tweets or 3.60 percent.

Social networking researcher Danah Boyd responded to the Pear Analytics survey by arguing that what the Pear researchers labeled “pointless babble” is better characterized as “peripheral awareness” or “social grooming.

Linked IN

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site mainly used for professional networking. As of October 2009^[update], it had more than 50 million registered users,  spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. LinkedIn has more than 50 million users worldwide, of which approximately half are in the United States. 11 million are from Europe. With 3 million users, India is the fastest-growing country as of 2009.

The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.

This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:

• A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual, trusted contact.
• It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one’s contact network.
• Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
• Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.

Facebook

Facebook is a global social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. The website currently has more than 300 million active users worldwide.

A January 2009 Compete.com study has ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.^]

Facebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the Wall, a space on every user’s profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see, Photos, where users can upload albums and phototos,  and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.  A user’s Wall is visible to anyone who is able to see that user’s profile, depending on privacy settings.

Over time, Facebook has added several new features to its website. On September 6, 2006, a News Feed was announced, which appears on every user’s homepage and highlights information including profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays of the user’s friends.

Plaxo

Plaxo is an online address book and social networking service founded by Napster co-founder Sean Parker, Minh Nguyen and two Stanford engineering students, Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring.

Plaxo provides automatic updating of contact information. Users and their contacts store their information on Plaxo’s servers. When this information is edited by the user, the changes appear in the address books of all those who listed the account changer in their own books. Once contacts are stored in the central location, it is possible to list connections between contacts and access the address book from anywhere.

A Plaxo plug-in supports major address books including Outlook/Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Mac OS X‘s Address Book, though other ones can be supported through an application programming interface. Additionally, Plaxo can also be maintained through an online version.

Social Media Marketing- Do’s and Dont’s

Dos
1. Don’t sound like PR -Social media marketing is effective when it is an authentic, transparent dialogue and not a vehicle to push promotional messaging.
2. Listen and Respond – Listen to the unfiltered voices of customers and people who are engaged in conversations about your brand.
3.Plan and Strategize - Give social media the respect as a credible marketing strategy and develop a plan that includes goals, objective and  measures.
4.Resources –  Realize that resources will have to be dedicated including time, money and most significantly human capital. Social Media Marketing  cannot be a hobby.
5.Work within limits –  Do understand the benefits, as well as the limitations, of the tools or tactics such as blogs, social networks, Twitter, etc before creating your initiative.e.g. one Twit is 140 words.

Don’ts
1.  Not An Answer to All Ills – Don’t assume social media marketing will transform a poor quality product or service into a super brand.
2. Inclusive Engagement –  Don’t launch a social media marketing plan unless your organization  understands the risks, as well as, the rewards and has defined its social media direction because social media will change business dynamics.
3 .Internal Processes –  Don’t launch a social media strategy unless you have processes in place such as internal communication plans to field information to the appropriate departments for resolution.
4. Horses for Courses- Don’t place a person in charge to oversee the initiative who does not understand the impact of the culture of social media (honesty, transparency, authenticity) and has a spirit of generosity.
5. Objectives - Don’t start a social media marketing strategy unless you want your organization to be perceived as innovative, customer-centric and forward thinking.