Archive for the ‘word of mouth’ Category

May20

Stop selling. Start enabling.

By: Spike Jones

Screen Shot 2013-05-20 at 4.02.39 PMIn our day-to-day marketing lives, when we’re all down in the weeds, dealing with regulations or crisis or product launches or whatever today may bring, it’s easy to forget the basics. But once you step back, it helps everything come into focus. In this case, the thing that I’m talking about is the way you see your brand (or your client’s brand for us agency folks) and the way your customer sees your brand. When those two things align, everyone wins. When they don’t, well, we live in a world littered with those very companies trying to solve that problem by yelling louder and outspending the next guy.

To be more specific, any word of mouth program – short-term or long-term – that I’ve had the opportunity to work on that was a success all started with one thing in common: they saw the brand, the product or the service as an enabler for their customers. A conduit, if you will, between a customer and what that customer is passionate about. Mind you, passion comes in many shapes and sizes. Sure, it can be about exploring the world or sailing the open seas. But passion can also come in the form of helping others. Putting good food on the table for your family. Creating and capturing memories. Exercising. Or yes, even cleaning the garage. You’d be amazing what people get excited about. It’s not just the sexy things.

When we reframe the conversation, we force ourselves to view the selling process differently. We no longer are begging the customer to buy and focusing all of the attention on us, but instead we are focusing the attention on them and what they love. Simple in theory, but to stay true to that concept in execution isn’t always easy.

So as you build that next campaign, think about how you can connect people to what they love most in the world. How can your brand be that thing that helps them love what they love even more? Because when you do, word of mouth ensues. And it doesn’t get any better than that.

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth0 comments

March12

Your Cause Might Not Be What You Think

By: Spike Jones

tumblr_lc8pebWUz71qf30hxo1_500_largeAs SXSW roars on and the interactive portion comes to a close, there’s a lot of chatter about the highs, lows and in-betweens. But through all the clutter, there are a handful of things that stuck out for me – and one that got stuck in my craw.

It has to do with companies and causes.

There are, of course, many variations of this conversation. One of them is brand as cause, like Love146 or the World Wildlife Fund. In other words, they are brands that exist wholly around the cause that they stand for. Then there are the ones that have a product, but stand for that one north star. Take Patagonia, for example, which is committed to helping the planet and makes sure everything they make and do supports that cause. Check out their Common Threads and 1% for the Planet programs, just to name a few (or the fact that after two or three times that they sent me a catalog and I didn’t order anything, they asked if they could take me off their mailing list to save paper). Or even Toms, a company that donates one pair of shoes to those in need for every one they sell.

And then there is, well, everyone else. And this is where the conversations I heard land. These people were saying that if your brand doesn’t stand for something – a cause, if you will – then people won’t care about it. And I absolutely agree. Where I absolutely disagree, however, is that your brand needs to align itself with something like saving the planet or curing cancer in order for people to care about you.

Let’s go ahead and get it out of the way: I’m not saying that’s a bad thing or even an ineffective thing. But experience has taught me that a brand can stand on its own as a cause, you just sometimes (okay, a lot of times) have to get your hands dirty to find it. And instead of having some arbitrary cause that sounds good, why not find the one that matters to your customers? For a crafting company, we found that their cause was to create a place that was safe online to share and celebrate each other’s work instead of the hostile communities that plagued the online space. For a city park client, it wasn’t planting trees and picking up trash. Their cause was celebrating the memories you make in a park with your family, your partner, etc. For a musical instruments initiative, it wasn’t about selling guitars and drum kits while looking for the next American Idol, but unlocking the music inside us all – no matter your skill level.

As an old colleague used to say, brands exist for two reasons: Solve my problem. And make me feel good. It’s no secret that people want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. But instead of looking outward for that cause, maybe you should look inward. Because when you find that thing to fight for, you a one step closer to putting a stake in the ground and defining who and what you are as a brand. And giving your customers something to fight far makes it even better.

Posted in: brands, Featured, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth1 comments

February7

Define the (Social Media) Relationship

By: Spike Jones

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Here’s the thing about creating relationships with influencers – or with any customers for that matter: BOTH sides have to want the relationship. That’s just the way any healthy relationship works.

But we live in a day and age where the “professional influencers” are being chased by the love-sick brands like the middle-high school geek desperately wanting to be noticed by the most popular girl in the class (not that I know anything about that). No matter how much he dreams about it, plots about it, creates opportunities for it to happen or downright wants it, she has to want it too. Because one person wanting a relationship does not a relationship make.

And therein lies the rub with social. We see study after study that proves most people don’t want to have a deep, meaningful relationship with a brand. They want a discount. They want a freebie. They want. And they want more. It’s all take and no give. And then on this side, you have a mountain of brands pushing out marketing messages hoping to get a bite on a sale. Again, it’s all take and no give. Not exactly a healthy relationship, is it?

Now I don’t want to lead to you to believe that this is always the case. There are those loyal, passionate folks that DO want to have a deep, meaningful, long-lasting relationship with a brand. They want to learn all about them. To know their hopes and dreams. To know what ails them (and try and help fix it). And, of course, that will stand up for them no matter what. These are those rare advocates. And because they are rare, they need to be treated as such – but that’s another post for another time.

My point is this: let’s define the relationship first. There’s already so much clutter in the social media space now, do you really want to push out more of it to an audience who could are less? Look, DTR talks are hard. But the great thing is that at the end of it, you at least know where you stand, and the hard part is over.

Now the real work begins.

 

Posted in: lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth3 comments

December13

Turning the Tables on Loyalty

By: Spike Jones

Loyalty-CardsBrands talking about loyalty has been happening for decades. And it’s a frequently visited topic for articles, blog posts, conference sessions and the like these days. We’ve got loyalty programs. Loyalty membership. Loyalty cards. The list goes on and on. And when you think about, there really haven’t been very many revelations or advancements when it comes to how brands think about loyalty.

Let me take a quick moment to remind you, as I wrote three years ago, that frequency doesn’t necessarily equal loyalty. Take that gas station on the way to work. You go there frequently because it’s convenient and on your route – but are you loyal to that gas station? I doubt it.

But I digress.

By the current state of thinking, brands are asking you to be loyal to them. They are asking you to join their program or carry their card. They, in essence, are asking you to buy more and buy more often. Sure, you can earn points or miles or free meals, etc., but in a lot of instances, it’s a game.

But what if we changed how we think about loyalty? What if we turned the tables? What if a brand had to join your loyalty program? So instead of pledging your loyalty to them, they pledged their loyalty to you? So American Airlines could join Spike’s loyalty program. Or Starwood. You get the idea.

So often we ask customers to put skin in the game and do things for us. Maybe it’s time brands did as well?

Just food for thought.

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth2 comments

November26

What real word of mouth looks like

By: Spike Jones

Gather ’round, kids because I want to share a case study with you that I just can’t seem to get out of my head. It’s about a year old now, but the lessons you can learn from this one will stick with you for a long, long time. It’s got everything: an unsexy product. An audience in middle America. Oh, and word of mouth marketing at its finest.

I’m talking about the kids over at Fizz and their work with the American Dairy Association of Ohio.

You can read the full, award-winning case study here, but let me give you a recap.

Challenge: Milk sales in Ohio were slumping (just like the rest of the country). If fact, consumption had dropped over 50% since the 70s.

The Legwork: Fizz dug into the ethnographic research and found that 65% of Ohioans live in cities under 50,000 people and 22% live in towns under 10,000. In other words, just like we learned with the teen anti-smoking movement in South Carolina, if you want to reach the majority of people in a rural state, you have to take the message to them.

The next big thing they discovered is that there is a solid case to be made for chocolate milk as a sports recovery drink. Seriously, look it up. “Researchers and nutritionists at Indiana found that chocolate milk, the drink of little kids, was the perfect beverage to drink after strenuous activity. It was, in reality, a better for you, high tech sports drink.”

But the big A-HA moment came when Fizz was identifying their influencers for this campaign. Did they go to food bloggers? No. Health and wellness bloggers? Sports bloggers with big Twitter followings? Nope. In fact, they didn’t use online influencers at all. So think to yourself, who, in rural towns across Ohio, would be the go-to person(s) when it comes to sports, nutrition and performance – all wrapped up in respect and a source of authority?

High school football coaches.

Smart, right?

Think about it. Football is huge in small-town Ohio. It’s an honor and privilege to be on the team. So if you’re on the team, your coach’s word is law. And also if you’re on the team, you’re more than likely a popular kid in the school – so you have people watching and looking up to you. Coach says drink chocolate milk because it’s good for recovery, you drink it. Others ask you why and then they drink it, too. This has a huge trickle-down word of mouth effect.

Results: Straight from the case study:

Kroger’s chocolate milk sales in the Cincinnati region increased an incredible 475%. That is a Kroger system-wide record for increase in milk sales;Kroger management could not believe so much milk was being sold. In markets across Ohio, milk consumption increased 12-28% YTD as verified by IRI Scandata. This was 10 times the rate of the rest of the country. The sales rise was so dramatic that concerned convenience store owners even contacted the agency staff about chocolate milk’s possible illicit use because of the unprecedented sales to teenage boys (remember “Whipits?”).

There is a lot more to the WOMMY-winning case study that you’ll find interesting, so be sure to head over to the Fizz site and take a look.

The biggest take-away for me is this: Influence comes in all shapes and sizes. And it takes carefully planned, insightful digging to find out where your story is going to resonate. The days of making a list of influential bloggers and then pitching them are waning. Because the very definition of online influence is changing on a daily basis. It’s a moving target. And if it’s where you put all your hope (and money), you’re bound to fail. The social media marketing world is falling into a Facebook, Twitter and blog rut. As John Bell said at the recent WOMMA conference: “It’s our job to build belief in the fundamentals.” How true. When we forget the basics, we will fail. When we forget that 90% of word of mouth happens offline, we will fail. But when we combine online and offline in meaningful ways, it opens up a whole world of opportunity. Easier said than done? Of course. Impossible? Not on your life.

Posted in: brands, Featured, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth2 comments

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