MackCollier.com

by

What’s the ‘Purpose’ of Your Marketing?

We all need a purpose in our lives and day to day activities. Sure, we get up, go to work, pay bills, and live life. But beyond that, we need to live a life of purpose. We need something to motivate and inspire us to get up in the morning. We need something to look forward to, we need to feel like we are accomplishing something worthwhile.

We need to feel like our life has a purpose.

In much the same way, your brand’s marketing needs a purpose. I’m not talking about separating your customers from their wallet, that’s not inspiring or motivating for the brand or customer. Does your marketing simply broadcast and promote on behalf of your brand, or does it have a purpose?

At Maker’s Mark, the brand gives its marketing purpose by reframing who its customers are. The brand views its customers as ‘friends’, and as such holds all marketing communications through the lense of ‘how would we talk to our friends?’ Additionally, the brand understands that you don’t broadcast to your friends, you have a one-to-one conversation with them. For years, the brand’s founders did this literally in the state of Kentucky where Maker’s Mark originated. But as the brand grew and became a nationwide sensation, it obviously became impossible for founders in Kentucky to have a one-to-one conversation with its customers all across the nation.

But Maker’s Mark held true to the ‘purpose’ of its marketing; to treat its customers as friends and have a one-to-one conversation with them. This led to the creation of a brand ambassador program, which allowed its ambassadors to scale those one-to-one conversations with customers all across the country. By holding true to the ‘purpose’ of its marketing, to treat its customers as friends, the brand was able to create an incredibly profitable brand ambassador program, which allowed the brand to have those one-to-one conversations with their friends.

The ‘purpose’ of Pedigree’s marketing isn’t to sell dog food, it’s to create happier and healthier dogs. This is also a focus that motivates its customers to pay attention to Pedigree’s marketing. Pedigree’s customers don’t care about dog food, they care about the health and well-being of their dogs, of all dogs.  Pedigree also uses its marketing to draw attention to dog adoption, to supporting your local pet shelter. All of these things tie into the ‘purpose’ of creating happier and healthier dogs.

If you’re trying to wrap your head around what the ‘purpose’ of your marketing is, think about how your brand’s products and services fit into the lives of your customers, and more importantly, how do those products and services improve the lives of your customers? If you can understand how your brand’s products and services improve your customer’s lives, that can become what you market.  That can become your marketing’s ‘purpose’ and what drives and inspires you as a marketer.

Don’t market your product, market how your product fits into my life and makes it better.  That should be the purpose of your marketing.

 

by

How to Segment Your Engagement Strategy Based on Customer Type

Most companies have a customer engagement strategy, but that strategy views customers as one type and structures the strategy accordingly.

Yet your customers are very different people, they might be a part of a larger group, but there are many smaller subsets of the larger group that your company should be aware of.

Let’s review the Buyer’s Journey:

Buyer's Journey, Creating Better Content

In looking at this process, you can see that some customers would be at each of these four stages leading up to a purchase. Let’s quickly review the type of content you should deliver to these customers at each stage, and then talk about how to engage each group:

Unaware: These are customers that don’t know who you are or what you do. The content you create for these customers should be focused heavily on the customer, and light on the brand. When you create content that talks about the customer, it gets their attention, and you will need their attention to move the customer closer to a sale. When you hear companies talk about wanting to ‘build awareness’ via social media and content marketing, these are the customers they are wanting to reach.

Engaging With Unaware Customers: When engaging with these customers, remember that they aren’t ready to buy, so attempting to sell to them will be a waste of time. This stage is about gaining attention, and developing trust. It’s why you want to invest so much time talking to and about the customer. Doing so will get their attention, and it helps them lower their guard and begin to trust you.

Years ago, I worked as a vendor for a company that sells consumer pesticides. Part of the job required that on the weekends, I had to sell the products. My trainer taught me how to sell the products, and he told me to never sell the product until you had talked to the customer, and then always suggest the best product to help them, even if it wasn’t the vendor’s product. I stocked the shelves during the week and on weekends I would be in the store primarily to sell the products, as were the competitor’s vendors.  One weekday I was stocking the shelves and an older gentleman came up and I asked him if he needed help and he started explaining an insect problem he was having in his lawn. After hearing his story, I saw that my company didn’t make a product to treat his particular issue, so I recommended a competitor’s product, which he bought.

That Saturday, myself and another vendor were selling on that same isle. I looked up and noticed the older gentleman I had sold the competitor’s product to walking up. The other vendor stopped him immediately and asked if he could help him. “Nope!”, he replied. “I came to talk to him!”, and he pointed at me. He then told me how the product I had suggested worked for him then asked me to tell him about the products MY company sold! Remember when you craft an engagement and content strategy for Unaware customers, that you want to focus on the customer because you want to get their attention, and you want to build trust with them. A hard sell at this point will turn them off immediately.

 

Slightly Aware: These are customers who are beginning to understand who your brand is, and what it does. Content aimed at these customers should help them understand how your brand’s products and services fit into their lives. So at this stage, you want to shift your content a bit to begin to discuss your product and services, but in the context of ‘Here’s how our stuff can help you”. In that way you are communicating that you know and understand who the customer is, and also that you know how your products and services can help them.

Engaging With Slightly Aware Customers: Here, you want to remind the customers how your products and services fit into their lives and IMPROVE their lives.

A good example of this is using a Twitter chat to talk about the larger topic that’s relevant to both your brand, and your customers.  Marriott has a #ParadiseChat, which is focused on travel, but in the context of the chat, Marriott can help establish the link between traveling, and staying at a Marriott hotel or resort. The Twitter chat also gives Marriott’s social media team a way to engage directly with potential customer before, during and after the chat, giving them more information about the brand’s offerings and how they could fit into the customer’s future travel plans.

 

Interested: Customers at this stage are now considering making a purchase. So your content should shift more toward the product itself. NOW is when you can FINALLY start to sell your brand’s products and services. Customers at this stage are doing research in your products and services and those of your competitors, before making a purchase decision.

How to Engage With Interested Customers: Customers at this stage will be doing research, so you want to engage with them in a way that helps them get the information they need. These customers will be consulting online reviews on sites such as Amazon, so if you have a current brand ambassador or loyalty program, you want to encourage its members to write reviews on sites such as Amazon for any of your products and services that they use.

Another example of how you can engage these customers is by giving them better access to product information. Taylor Guitars began to notice in its retail stores that customers would inspect a guitar in the store, but when they saw the price, they would often put the guitar back and decide to go home to do more research. Taylor Guitars took this customer behavior into account, and incorporated research tools into its smartphone app. This gives customers access to better product information in store, and can help them justify the purchase. Too many companies attempt to change customer behavior, when the smart play is to accept customer behavior and work with it, not against it.

 

Ready to Buy! Customers at this stage are…ready to buy! Your content should do one thing, help them complete the sale.

How to Engage With Customers Who Are Ready to Buy: Sell to them. Don’t ask them to sign up for your newsletter or follow your brand on social media, just help them complete the purchase because that’s all the customer is interested in doing.

 

As you can see, your engagement strategy can’t be ‘one size fits all’, because you don’t have just one type of customer. You have to take into account what type of customer you are attempting to engage with at any touchpoint, and adjust your engagement strategy accordingly.

by

Instagram’s Threads Messaging App Attempts to Take Social Media ‘Back to the Future’

The rumor is that Instagram plans on launching a new standalone messaging app called Threads. This app would be geared toward letting Instagram users connect with their closest contacts only. The idea of a social media app that focuses on only your closest friends isn’t new (remember Path?), but what’s interesting here is how the app’s functionality is arrived at. Instagram looked at its users and found that they connected differently with their closest contacts. Most Instagram users preferred to communicate with close connections via instant messaging rather than public interactions.  In other words, Instagram found that most users communicate publicly with everyone, and privately with just their close friends.

I’ve written about this before, but I think we will see social media sites and apps begin to move toward helping us foster closer connections with fewer people versus platonic connections with everyone. Social media was originally focused on growing your network organically via simple interactions with friends and family. Everyone had smaller networks, and a much closer connection to the members of their network.

This all began to change when social media sites like Facebook and Twitter began adding ‘vanity metrics’ to a user’s account and activity. Suddenly, everyone could see how many people followed you, or how much engagement every bit of content you created had earned. It also changed how we created and shared content. If a particular piece of content had many Likes or Retweets, it was a sort of ‘social proof’ that other people enjoyed this content, so it must be worth our attention. Or at least worth sharing with others.

I’ve wondered how our behavior on social media today would change if no one knew how many followers someone had, or how much (or little) engagement their content had earned. Would we go back to communicating instead of broadcasting? Would we judge content on its own merits, rather than the number of Likes or Retweets it had gotten?

At the end of the day, I think most of us would like to return to a time when it was more about the ‘social’ and less about the ‘media’.

If you’d like to learn more about the potential of the Threads app and why Instagram could go in this direction, check out this episode of eMarketer’s Behind the Numbers podcast.

 

by

Why Great Storytelling is So Important to Your Brand

I’ve been working with my friends at MarketingProfs this Summer to create a course for their Storytelling Summit for Marketers, which launches on September the 10th. As a way to give you a sneak peek at my course, Storytelling on Social Media, I wanted to talk a bit about why it’s important for your brand to tell stories.

Stories power Word of Mouth. By using story, you have a way to relate information to other people via a method (the story) which makes the information not only much more interesting, but you also increase the chance that other people will continue to pass that information along by sharing that same story.

I am an Alabama football fan, as most of you know. Recently, I was talking to a friend about the last two seasons, and Alabama’s starting QB, Tua Tagovailoa. If I had wanted to simply share information with this person, I could have said “Alabama beat Georgia the last two seasons.” While factually correct, both those wins were wrapped in incredible stories that make the information (Bama beat Georgia) far more interesting and memorable.

In 2017, Alabama faced Georgia for the National Championship. Jalen Hurts was Alabama’s starting QB, but Tua was the gunslinging backup that dazzled fans every time he played. Every time Hurts struggled, the fans clamored for Tua to come in, but he never did.

In the NC game against Georgia, the Bulldogs jumped out to a big lead by halftime.  Hurts was having a terrible game for Alabama. At halftime, the switch was made to start true freshman Tua in the second half, and he led Alabama to a come-from-behind victory, sealed by a 41-yard TD pass in Overtime.

The following year Alabama played Georgia for the SEC Championship and the roles were reversed. This time Tua was the starter and Jalen was the backup. And once again, Georgia jumped out to a big lead as Tua battled injuries. In the 2nd half, Jalen was put in and as Tua did the year before, he led Bama back to score a late win over Georgia. Jalen’s heroics led to a very emotional postgame interview with Nick Saban:

Now isn’t that a lot more memorable and interesting than saying ‘Alabama beat Georgia the last two seasons’?

Brand storytelling is about using story to communicate information to your customers. Ideally, that information will be both interesting and relevant to your customers, and relevant to your brand as well. When thinking about creating stories for your brand, think about what stories you can tell that will be both relevant to your customers, and also speak to what your brand stands for and is about.

A very simple way to do this can be by utilizing the stories of your customers, which you are probably already doing with testimonials. You can also let your employees tell what it’s like working for your brand, this can help streamline the hiring process, reducing hiring costs.

Also keep in mind when you are thinking about telling stories, that you can always use hypothetical examples in your stories. In fact, mixing real examples with abstract ones is one of the best ways to teach difficult concepts. You can tell a story about how one of your customers uses your product, then add a hypothetical “here’s how you could use our product” story to supplement the customer’s story.

Just remember that storytelling is a wonderful way to deliver information to your customers, and give them a way to easily relate that information to others, enhancing word of mouth.  Besides, who doesn’t love hearing and sharing a good story?

If you want to learn how to up your brand storytelling game, check out MarketingProfs’ Storytelling Summit for Marketers. Courses go live on September 10th, with additional live keynotes on the 17th and 24th.

 

PS: To wrap up the story with Tua and Jalen, at the end of the 2018 season, Jalen transferred to Oklahoma, where he won the starting QB job in the Spring. Last Saturday was the season opener for both Alabama and Oklahoma. Tua was amazing for Alabama, passing for over 300 yards and 4 TDs. But Jalen was the talk of the college football world, accounting for over 500 yards rushing and passing, and 6 TDs. After Week One, both are considered frontrunners for the Heisman trophy, given to the top player in college football.

 

BONUS: Well isn’t this awesome? Kerry at MarketingProfs has given me a $100 discount code to pass along to you, use code KERRYLIKESME to save $100 on the Storytelling for Marketers Summit!

by

The Secret Language of Happy Customers

Let’s say you are a die hard fan of the movie Memento, like I am. Think about the conversation you would have with someone who just saw the movie for the first time last night. Most of their input would likely be along the lines of “WTF did I just watch???”

Now how would that conversation change if you met another fellow die hard fan of Memento?  You would have a COMPLETELY different conversation. You would get into dissecting individual scenes, the plot as a whole, you would question if it was really Teddy who slipped the note under Leonard’s door at the hotel, or was it someone else?

In her wonderful book Badass: Making Users Awesome, Kathy Sierra talks about how your most passionate users/customers have a different conversation than your regular customers. They are the ‘experts’ who hear music differently, the photographers who notice details in a landscape and how to frame a picture perfectly that the rest of us completely miss. They have a more advanced understanding of the things they are passionate about, and as a result, their conversations are more advanced as well.

I was remembering Kathy’s teachings when I recently heard the wonderful episode of the Punch Out podcast with David Meerman Scott as guest. First, David is absolutely brilliant and has some incredibly fascinating hobbies, so the episode is a must-listen purely for the entertainment value.

But David said something fascinating that ties into Kathy’s point about passionate users/customers having a different conversation around the things they love.  David said “It’s a way to form really strong bonds with people, around a shared fandom, a shared emotional connection. At one time I was like ‘this is a frivolous hobby’, but it’s not. It’s something that’s really important for us humans, to be around like minded people.”

Whenever I talk to companies about building a brand ambassador program, one of the key elements I always address is the need to have a way for the members of the program to connect with each other. It’s incredibly important to have people that share a passion around an idea, a belief, or even a brand, connect directly with each other.  I’ve often said that a rock concert is one of the greatest marketing inventions created. Think about what a rock concert is; you take hundreds if not thousands of fans of a rock artist or band, and stick them in the same arena and let them interact with each other. Being that close to so many people that share a similar passion or interest as you makes the entire experience that much better and more rewarding. It also increases your attachment and passion for the rock star.

So it makes sense to find a way to connect these customers to each other. Such customers are often great candidates for Customer Advisory Panels, or any group you create where you regularly solicit and act on feedback from customers. If you have a formal brand ambassador program, one of the important aspects is creating channels or tools that allow ambassadors to connect with each and become more comfortable together. This can easily be done with something as simple as a Facebook group or Slack channel.

Now, how could these special customers fit into your current marketing efforts?

Let’s remember we are talking about customers who are highly knowledgeable about your products and services. So much so that they likely will know more about your products and services than some of your newer employees. In other words, these special customers have the ability to be some of your best salespeople, if you tap into their abilities.

At this point, let’s revisit the buyer’s journey:

Buyer's Journey, Creating Better Content

The best place to utilize these customers would be in helping move potential customers from the Interested to Ready to Buy stage. Potential customers who are already interested are likely doing research on your products and services as the final step before committing to a purchase. Think of these customers as your ‘closers’, the customers that come in and seal the deal/sale for the person who is almost ready to make a purchase.

Let’s remember that customers who are in the Interested stage of the buyer’s journey are doing independent research. They are perusing your company website for specific product information and details. They are also searching for feedback from other customers. Customer reviews on websites such as Amazon are a common choice as its important to hear what people thought about your product or service AFTER buying it. Savvy customers will also search for complaints about your products and services, looking for common issues or problems that customers encountered.

Which is why it pays to engage with your more advanced customers and give them the incentive and structure to engage with customers who are in the ‘Interested’ stage of the buyer’s journey.  Encourage these customers to write reviews, publish blog posts, interact on message boards and forums.

The reality is that your most passionate customers are also your best salespeople.  Research has shown time and time again that we don’t trust brands, but we do trust other customers.

 

by

How to Write Great Blog Comments

Writing better blog comments
Are you a commenting superhero?

Blogs are sexy again. As we move away from social media sites and toward a more decentralized social web experience, people and businesses are devoting more time to their blogs as a way to connect with readers and potential customers. If you’re devoting more time to your blog, don’t forget to focus on writing better blog comments. Whether you are replying to a reader on your own blog or leaving a comment on someone else’s blog, commenting is one of the best ways you can connect with new readers/customers, and build exposure for your business. Let’s talk about how to write great comments whether it’s on another blog, or on your own.

 

How to Write Great Blog Comments on Other Blogs

One of the best ways to grow your blog, is to leave it. What I mean by this is leaving comments on other blogs is a great way to create value for others, and ultimately grow awareness for your own blogging efforts. This is especially helpful for new bloggers that are looking to build a readership or following as compared to established bloggers.

But not all blog comments are created equal, and here’s some of the tips I’ve learned over the years for writing great blog comments:

1 – Add something to the conversation. Often I will read a post and think ‘wow, great post!’ But go past that, highlight issues that the blogger addressed, and add your own take. You don’t have to agree completely, and you don’t have to stick with their point. If one example they mentioned reminds you of another instance from your own experiences, mention that. But try to avoid simply repeating what others have said. And this is easier to do when you…

2 – Comment early. Sure it’s nice to let a few people comment first, so then you can build off what they say, as well as the blogger’s post. But what if you wait too long and everyone has addressed the points you wanted to raise? Don’t be afraid to put your thoughts down and to share your opinions. This is how you generate conversation and attention.

3 – Don’t over-promote yourself. No one likes reading a comment that’s blatant self-promotion.  We’ve all seen these comments, “Hey Mack, really great thoughts on this topic, I recently blogged about this as well…”, then they include a link to their blog (In fact, I often delete these comments if someone attempts to leave one here). Obviously, the only reason they left the comment was to link out to their site. Remember that you aren’t leaving the comment to promote yourself, you are trying to create value for the blog by adding to the conversation. If you’ve done your job, you’ll get promotion as an indirect result of your efforts.

4 – You can disagree, without being disagreeable. I might be a bit different from some in how I approach disagreements in the comments section, but I love it when readers disagree with my posts, and challenge my points. The biggest reason why, is because when you bring in alternative points, that extends the conversation and gives more people a chance to jump and leave their point of view.

However, always remember that it’s ok to ‘attack’ the ideas, but not the people presenting the ideas. Challenging stances and ideas are fine, but personal attacks add nothing to the conversation, and make you look like a jackass. Not what you want. Feel free to disagree, but don’t be disagreeable.

5 – Ask questions. What if you find a post and agree with the post, and everything the commenters have said. Now what? Why not ask a question or bring up a point that no one has raised yet? One thing that often happens, especially on blogs where the writer is very popular, is the readers may all agree with the writer. Why not offer a contrarian view and bring up the other side of the issue? Again, this helps extend the conversation, and you might find that others will then chime in saying that they agree with your point of view.

6 – Know why you are commenting. Are you leaving a comment to draw attention to yourself, or to add to the conversation? As with most everything else in social media, blog comments work best as a way to INdirectly promote yourself. Write a comment that others find value in, and that encourages others to check out your blog, follow you on Twitter, etc. Write a comment that was clearly intended to promote your blog, and you will likely gain nothing, and hurt your reputation.

 

How to Write Great Blog Comments on Your Own Blog (And Tips For Leveraging Great Blog Comments Left By Your Readers)

So that covers how to write great blog comments on someone else’s blog, but how do you handle blogs written on your own site?

My over-arching rule for comments on your own blog is Reward the Behavior You Want to Encourage. If your blog allows readers to comment, then you want readers to comment.  So if commenting is the reader behavior that you want, then you need to think about what you can do to encourage more readers to comment. Here’s some of my tips:

1 – Reply to as many comments as possible. If a reader comments on your blog, you want to reply to that comment if at all possible. This signals to the reader that you read their comment, and that you appreciate their comment enough to take the time to respond to them. This also ENCOURAGES this reader to comment again, since they know you will reply to them if they do.

2 – Ask the reader to expand on their thoughts. If a reader has left an indepth comment, then feel free to engage them in your reply and ask them to clarify or expand on a point they raised in their comment. This doesn’t always work as the reader that left the original comment may not see your reply to them or they may not feel like replying. Still, by replying to the commenter you are signaling to them and all your readers that you value their comment and that encourages your readers to comment more often.

3 – Add great reader comments to the body of the post they are commenting on. This is a great way to acknowledge and thank your reader for a great comment, and it encourages them to comment again. If a reader leaves a comment that I want to highlight, I will add it to the end of the post (or in another part of the post, if relevant), and make special mention of the comment, and the person who left the comment.  If the commenter added a link to their blog when they commented, I will add a link to their blog when I add the comment to my post, as an extra incentive for the readers to comment more often, as well as an additional way to acknowledge and thank the reader for their great comment. Also, doing this encourages readers to check out the comments and may encourage them to leave their own comment.

 

These are some tips I have learned from my own experience in writing blog comments. What did I miss that works for you?

by

Tiny Love Spaces – Why Smaller is Often Better in Social Media

I wanted to talk about three distinct groups of friends I’ve followed over the last year or so. The first is a group of friends who are frequent business travelers, and we share stories and purchase suggestions in a group on Facebook.  The second is a group of friends who are fellow members of Adobe’s Insider Group, and we stay in touch via a Twitter group DM and Slack channel.  The third group of friends are people I have met on, of all things a phone game, and we have a group on messaging app Line.

These three groups are almost completely distinct (a few of my friends in the Facebook group are also in the Adobe Insiders group DM), and have formed around three very different social apps/platforms.

In fact, someone recently asked me what my favorite current social media site or app was and I immediately said ‘Line’. But I quickly realized that there’s nothing really spectacular about Line, I just thought of it first because that’s where my newest group of friends are.

These examples cover two trends that will be relevant to social and digital media over the coming years that I wanted to discuss.

1 – We are long past the saturation point in social media content. Notice I said social media CONTENT. Originally, social media sites and tools were used for communication. Over the last few years, social media sites have morphed into content distribution platforms first, with communication happening a distant second. As a result, user behavior has changed. Some people have adapted their social media usage, and have started sharing more content on social media sites. I certainly have. Others have changed their behavior by spending less time on these sites as the experience has shifted.

Yet another way that users have adapted to the content sharing saturation on social media sites is by creating small groups or clusters of people who can more organically interact with each other. The three examples I mentioned above; Facebook groups, Twitter group DMs and Line groups, represent this idea of going back to when we could connect and interact with our friends and peers on these sites. I also wonder if we might see this happening more on blogs, as bloggers try to re-cultivate reading communities on their sites. It’s about self-creating a way to cut through the clutter and get back to having a small group of friends or people that share a common connection or interest.

2 – People use social sites and apps based on whether or not their friends are using them. A few months ago I started playing a phone game and as soon as I did, everyone in the game told me “You have to get on Line!”  So after weeks of needling about not being on Line, I finally joined.  And the app itself is nothing that spectacular, but I enjoy using it because it gives me a way to stay in touch with the friends I’ve made while playing the game.

I think this is something we all do, we don’t pick a social app or site based on form and functionality as much as we do because we want to stay in touch with the people we know. Ten years ago there were far more social media sites and apps vying for eyeballs, and as a result many of those sites offered their own quirky user interface or functionality elements to try to attract attention.  Today, there are far fewer successful social media sites, and most of the mainstream ones share many of the core functionality elements. So functionality isn’t really a deciding factor in social media usage as it might have been a few years ago.

 

I’ve written about this before, but I think we are seeing a move away from a decentralized social web back to centralized, smaller groups or clusters of people organized around a common theme, belief or idea. I also think marketers need to understand this shift, and prepare for it.  This is why you are seeing companies move from working with influencers with huge followers, to working with T-Shaped or micro-influencers that have smaller followings, but a much deeper connection to those people.

What made social media so amazing in its earliest days was that it gave us an easy way to build deep connections with small clusters of people.  Over time, that’s morphed into having very shallow connections with as many people as possible.

I don’t think that’s ideal, or sustainable. Smaller and deeper groups of friends are preferable than having everyone on a site, and not really knowing anyone.

 

PS: I wanted to say thanks to BuzzSumo for including me in its list of the Top 100 Digital Marketing Influencers for 2019, at #20. A wonderful honor, check the list as there are a ton of smart people to follow.

by

The Promise and (Potential) Peril of Social Commerce

Social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram are embracing the idea of social commerce. Social commerce is about making it easier for users and accounts to sell products directly via their feeds and content. For instance, Instagram users that meet a certain follower threshold can link directly to products in their Stories.

For marketers, the appeal of social commerce is obvious. Leveraging social content to drive sales has always been a goal for marketers, and as platforms are embracing functionality that makes this easier, companies are obviously quite excited at the potential for social commerce. From the user perspective, my view is, how can social commerce be leveraged to improve the user experience? If the user experience is enhanced, then those users will embrace social commerce functionality on these sites.  The attempts at incorporating social commerce will pass or fail in great part on how successfully these attempts understand user intent and only sell to those users who are truly ready to buy.

I think there is great promise and (potential) peril when it comes to social commerce, and I wanted to discuss how social commerce could work, and how it could fail. For now, marketers are focusing on social commerce to immediately complete sales. But when you factor in the social element, there’s great opportunity for these platforms to facilitate the awareness, consideration and research phases that then lead to commerce, and do so in a social setting, with users working together to help move each other through the sales funnel. So lets look at both the good and potential bad about social commerce:

So What Is Social Commerce?

Social commerce is about leveraging social media sites and platforms to facilitate and complete sales directly on that site or platform. For instance, Instagram recently announced a Checkout feature that will eventually let users buy products without leaving the Instagram app.  This feature is currently in beta, here’s how Instagram says it will work:

“Today, we’re introducing checkout on Instagram. When you find a product you love, you can now buy it without leaving the app.

When you tap to view a product from a brand’s shopping post, you’ll see a “Checkout on Instagram” button on the product page. Tap it to select from various options such as size or color, then you’ll proceed to payment without leaving Instagram. You’ll only need to enter your name, email, billing information and shipping address the first time you check out.

Once your first order is complete, your information will be securely saved for convenience the next time you shop. You’ll also receive notifications about shipment and delivery right inside Instagram, so you can keep track of your purchase.”

 

The idea of using social media to directly drive sales is not a new concept, in 2014 Twitter let brands add a Buy button directly to tweets. This feature was later removed, but it shows that social media brands have been trying to find a way to add social buying functionality into its platforms for a while now.

How Social Commerce Could Benefit Users

The idea of implementing selling directly into social media streams and sites is a scary proposition for a lot of social media users. That’s because, marketers tend to push sales on customers even when they aren’t ready to buy. If used smartly, social commerce could greatly benefit customers by tapping into the ‘social’ element of social media.

First, let’s revisit the buyer’s journey and talk about how it applies to social media. This post on How to Sell With Social Media covers the topic, and I’ll summarize the stages here:

  1. Unaware, AKA Who the hell are you?. The buyer has no idea who you are, or why they should want to listen to you, much less buy anything from you. When companies talk about using social media to ‘Build Awareness’, this is the group they are targeting.
  2. Slightly aware and slightly interested. This group has begun to understand who you are, and can start to see how your products and services can fit into their lives.
  3. Interested and considering buying. This group knows who you are, knows what you sell, and knows how those products and services fit into their lives. Now they are trying to decide who to buy from, you or a competitor.
  4. Ready to buy. Take my money!

 

These are the stages for the journey that the average buyer goes on. As you can see, the buyer isn’t READY to be sold to until really the 4th and last stage. And the buyer doesn’t want any promotional content focused on products and services until the 3rd stage when they are doing research.  So the challenge for social media sites and platforms that want to incorporate social commerce is to factor in user intent. If the user isn’t ready to buy, selling them won’t create a positive experience for them.

On the other hand, when you add a social layer over the buying process, that can change things. If you take a product that I don’t know about or know I want, and add an endorsement for that product via a person I trust ON SOCIAL MEDIA, that can quickly move me to a point where I am ready to buy.

Let give you an example of how this can work: A few years ago I was invited to join a Facebook group based around business travel. These are peers (many of who I knew and trusted) who wanted to create a Facebook group just to discuss navigating a lifestyle where you are traveling more than you are at home. In the course of the conversations of this group, product recommendations would often come up. Someone would mention a problem they had with frequent business travel, someone else would recommend a product they bought that helps solve that problem. Several times I saw members buy a product another member had recommended, I did as well.

The funny thing is, I wasn’t interested in buying those products until someone I trusted recommended them on social media. If I had seen an ad for those same products appear in my feed, I would have ignored them, but because someone I trusted recommended those same products, I bought them.  But even then, all they could do was link to Amazon or another site.  We didn’t have the ability to buy right there without leaving Facebook.  Social commerce is about removing that layer of friction to the buying process AND it’s about shifting the buying process to people you know and trust. When leveraged correctly, social commerce can merge with the organic discussions that are already happening on social media, and add utility to the user experience, instead of degrading it.

For instance, Pinterest has begun incorporating social commerce into its platform. If executed correctly, this could improve the experience for Pinterest users as many are on the site browsing for ideas or doing research for future purchases. Additionally, comments from other users can help users make decisions on which products to buy and which ones to avoid. The key is adding social commerce in a place and time that the user is OPEN to the addition and doesn’t view it as a distraction or irritant. Social commerce should enhance the user experience, not detract from it.

Related: Pinterest explains its new social commerce products on the Behind the Numbers Podcast.

 

The Potential Risks of Social Commerce

At its best, adding a commerce layer to social interactions could provide great utility for users, while helping customers work with other customers to better organize information and recommendations. It helps connect customers with products they need and can use, and can help them make smarter purchase decisions, by leaning on advice from peers and friends they trust.

But there is a potential risk to adding commerce to social interactions, especially if the commerce involves leveraging those social interactions to create new sales that otherwise might not happen. It can lead to spending more than you wanted to, and increase feelings of remorse, post-purchase.

Here’s an example of what I mean: Last year during the week of Thanksgiving, I downloaded and began playing a game on my iPhone called World War Rising. I figured it would be a fun time-killer and I had some free time during the holidays. The game itself it pretty forgettable, but it does have a very strong social element driving it. The game is set up so alliances of people wage ‘war’ on each other by attacking each others bases. An alliance can have up to 100 members and members have chat functionality as well as private messaging to connect with each other.

Here’s where things get tricky. The game is set up to encourage you to interact with your fellow alliance members. You get to know your teammates, and feel a connection to them. The game has events where teammates work together so that the alliance as a group receives prizes.  So you quickly develop an affinity and sense of kinship for your teammates.

What’s curious, and a bit scary, is how the game monetizes its players. The game offers players packs of goodies that are designed to help them grow their bases and become stronger. These packs can range in price from $5 all the way up to $99.  And believe it or not, there are a LOT of people that spend a LOT of money on these packs. It’s not at all uncommon to find players that have spent THOUSANDS of dollars on this game.

Many times, I have had a player tell me that they bought a $99 pack and they justified the purchase to themselves by saying “I felt I owed it to the team to get stronger”. When I first joined the game and learned that people spent hundreds if not thousands on the game, I thought these people must be insane! But after playing the game for a while, I can totally understand why people spend money on the game. There really is a sense of wanting to HELP your teammates by buying packs to get stronger. And when a player buys a pack, they are congratulated by their teammates. I’ve talked to players who have played previous versions of this game by the same developers and they all comment on how the developers have selling to its players down to a science. They know how to drive sales, and I would even say it comes dangerously close to manipulating players to spend money. If your base is attacked and you suffer a major defeat, you might be offered a pack that promises to “help you recover now!” or something similar.

 

Selling via social media has always been about accepting the behaviors of the users and improving the experience for those users. If you try to change behavior via commerce, it’s very easy to alienate and irritate users. But if you accept the organic behavior of users and only introduce commerce functionality to users who are ready to buy, then you are offering utility, not hindrance.

Either way, social commerce is here to stay. There will no doubt be growing pains, and hopefully marketers will work with existing user behavior when incorporating commerce into social channels, instead of trying to change behavior.

by

What I Saw and Learned at Adobe Summit 2019

This year I made my third trip to Las Vegas for the Adobe Summit as part of the Adobe Insiders group. This is a group of influencers who serve as on site ‘correspondents’ for Adobe in helping to promote the event and share key insights. We also serve to advise Adobe on the focus, structure and strategy behind Summit, but that’s in a more limited capacity.

I wanted to share some of the things I saw and learned in my 4 days in Las Vegas for Summit. This post will be structured to cover two main areas. First, I wanted to discuss the event itself, some of the key takeaways and topics discussed. After that, I wanted to talk a bit about the structure of the Adobe Insiders group as I know many of you are working with influencers at your companies, and it’s always helpful to see how other companies work with influencers.

Retention is the new ‘Growth’ 

This was a big theme at Adobe Summit. The idea that by delivering amazing experiences for your customers, you retain them longer, reduce churn, and the associated costs from acquiring new customers.

This is, of course, a theme that’s near and dear to my heart, and was a big driver behind my writing Think Like a Rock Star. The idea that your current customers can do a much better job of acquiring new customers and driving growth than traditional marketing efforts. Tying into this theme was the importance of delivering amazing digital experiences to customers. One of the key focus points of the entire conference was the significance of personalizing the experience that the customer receives.

Now, this is where I want to play devil’s advocate a bit. Many of the sessions and discussions I saw and participated in at Adobe Summit around the idea of personalization centered on the idea of delivering a personalized experiences to the customer in order to complete a sale. This is understandable, as Adobe’s Experience Cloud suite of products are focused on helping businesses increase customer sales to a great degree. But when marketers think of personalization when it comes to digital experiences, this effort needs to be applied throughout the buying process, not just when the customer is at a consideration stage. In fact, the ability to personalize content and experiences prior to the consideration stage, is key to moving the uninterested or unaware customer to a point where they are ready to buy. ‘Personalization’ to many marketers means “how can we customize the sales offer to each individual customer, in order to increase sales?”, while ‘personalization’ to many customers means “give me relevant content and experiences at every touchpoint, regardless of whether I am ready to buy or not”.  That is a disconnect that many marketers need to be aware of, and address by closing that gap between customer expectations, and what marketers deliver.

Tying into the idea of delivering better experiences was the idea of the B2E business.  You have B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer), but then you have some businesses that sell to both consumer and business customers. And in some cases, the buyers may be buying for both their business as well as personal (consumer) use.  So the idea of the B2E (business to everyone) was mentioned early and often at Adobe Summit.

The underlying idea was to stop thinking of a client as being solely B2B or B2C since we are rapidly moving toward a business environment where many companies will have both consumer and business customers, and marketing will need to reflect that and offer a sort of hybrid approach that’s still relevant to end customer.

BTW I would be remiss if I did not mention the exhibit hall/trade show area at Adobe Summit. Summit has always done a fabulous job with its trade show area. At many events, the trade show area is a huddled group of booths that event organizers are constantly pushing attendees toward, that most attendees really don’t want to spend time at. But Summit’s ‘Community Pavilion’ is so nicely done. The area has plenty of booths and all the things you expect at a conference exhibit hall. But it also has a ton of activities, food and drinks, and other attractions that suck you in and keep you in the area. All this is entertaining and makes you want to walk around and see the sights. And as such, increases the likelihood that you will stop by a few booths and talk to the exhibitors. With all the ancillary activities happening, it gives everyone a reason to come to the area, slow down and mingle. Which greatly increases the chances that more attendees will stop by more booths as a result.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

@kateoneill is doing some serious hand talking with @kerrygorgone #adobesummit

A post shared by Mack Collier (@mackcollier) on

In addition, Adobe provided ‘recharging stations’ throughout the conference area, which were greatly appreciated.  Adobe Summit has grown incredibly in just the last few years.  The first time I attended in 2016, I believe the attendance was 10,000.  This year, it was a little over 17,000. The event just keeps getting bigger and I honestly did not talk to any attendees who ever got tired or felt overwhelmed, just the opposite in fact.

Adobe Insiders Influencer Group

I wanted to shift gears a bit and talk a little about the structure of the Adobe Insiders group that was on-site and working with Adobe during the Adobe Summit.  2016 was my first year working with Adobe as a member of its Insiders group.  I believe the size of the group was under 10 in 2016.  I was also part of the Insiders group in 2017 when it was around 20 members, and this year the group totaled around 60 social media, marketing and technology influencers.

The over-arching goal of the group was to help promote the Adobe Summit and for each of us to share relevant insights and information from the speakers, keynotes and even attendees. Our feedback and insights were shared across all our usual social media channels, with an emphasis placed on Twitter since its much easier to track and access mentions on Twitter, especially at volume. The main hashtag used, #AdobeSummit, was a top trending topic on Twitter for pretty much the duration of the event. The work of the Insiders group played a big role in that.

I advise and consult with many companies who are working with groups of influencers or brand ambassadors. I always advise these companies to create platforms and channels to allow the group to become connected and to interact with each other prior to the event. Adobe did a wonderful job of facilitating communication channels for the group, including a private Twitter group, a Slack channel, conference calls, and even through #AdobeChat. It helped build camaraderie among the group, and by bringing some of the same members back every year, we form a bond as well.  Some of the members of this year’s group I knew from working with them in 2016 and 2016 at the Summit.

And what a group it was. I was able to see many old friends and a few people like Ann Handley and David Armano that I hadn’t seen in years.

All said, Adobe Summit was a wonderful event and I loved every minute it. Typically, I hit what I call ‘The Introvert’s Wall’ on the 2nd or 3rd day at an event. I get exhausted and honestly am ready to go home. That never happened in my 4 days in Las Vegas for Adobe Summit. The event kept my interest and attention throughout, and being able to spend so much time with my friends in the Insider group as well as my friends at Adobe made it a wonderful week. Information is already up for Adobe Summit 2020, and I hope I will see you there!

Disclaimer: Adobe sponsored my trip to Adobe Summit and the opinions I shared about the event here and on other social media channels were my own. 

by

The Factors That Drive Brand Loyalty in 2019

Wikibuy recently surveyed 5,000 people to learn what made them loyal to a particular brand. You can find the research here, but I wanted to go over some of the findings:

Product Quality is the Top Driver of Brand Loyalty. 40% of respondents identified product quality as the attribute most likely to make them loyal to a particular brand. What this means is that social media will not save you from having a shitty product. We can talk about social media, content marketing, digital transformation all we want, but if the product is crap, nothing else matters.

So if you have a product that isn’t considered to be high-quality by your customers, how do you change that? The starting point is in better understanding what your customers value and view as being a quality product.

In the past couple of years Voice of the Customer programs have become en vogue at many companies as a way to have a structured plan in place to better solicit then act on feedback from customers. Whenever I am advising companies on building a brand ambassador program, I try to see if there’s a way to create a Customer Advisory Panel as an offshoot of this effort.

Regardless of the name, the end goal of better understanding your customers can greatly improve product design, functionality, and quality. Remember, quality is a subjective term. If you better understand your customers, you also better understand what they view as ‘quality’ in regards to your product or service. By incorporating and acting on customer feedback, you can improve the quality of the product in the eyes of the customer, which increases the chance of creating brand loyalty.

27% of Customers Who Are Brand Loyalists Will Buy Another Product From That Same Brand. This is an interesting finding as it says that loyalty for a brand can transfer across products for 27% of your customers. The study also found that over half of respondents recommend products and services from their favorite brands to other customers.

This ties into another study that found that less than 5% of your customers generate 100% of your Word of Mouth. What we can take from these two studies is that your most loyal customers are generating new sales and they are also the most engaging and active customers you have. As a result, new customer acquisition should flow through your current, loyal customers, instead of through advertising. This is a disconnect that many brands can’t get past.

 

There’s a common thread running through both this points and it is this: Leverage your most loyal customers to improve product design, marketing and sales. Some of the most successful (and bravest) companies leverage their current, happy customers, to drive growth and acquire new customers. Many companies see the value in leveraging current customers to promote their brand, but the true value in working with your current customers comes from leveraging them as a feedback channel. Customers are more trusted than brands when it comes to product promotion, which means we value the opinions of our friends and family more than we do brand advertisements.

Let’s say Tom is in the market for a new car. Based on his situation, he decides he wants a sedan. He would probably start by doing research on the internet, consulting websites and blogs to get a sense or what the most highly-ranked sedans are.

After that initial round of research, he settles on 5 different models. One of which, is a Ford Fusion. His co-worker, Lisa owns a Ford Fusion, so Tom decides to talk to her about her Fusion. Another of Tom’s models being considered is a Honda Accord, and his brother-in-law Hank has an Accord, so he also asks Hank his opinion on owning an Accord.

The feedback Tom receives from Lisa and Hank will likely go a long way toward determining which model car Tom decides to get. Note that the majority of the information Tom uses to make his decision is NOT coming from Honda or Ford. It’s coming from other customers and third-party websites and bloggers.

But what makes the interactions with Lisa and Hank so valuable for Tom is that they both know and understand Tom and what he wants from a vehicle. Tom really likes how Hank’s Honda Accord looks, and believes it has better features than the Ford Fusion.  He’s almost sold on the Accord, and mentions this to his co-worker Lisa.  Tom and Lisa are vendors, and their jobs require them to spend a lot of time visiting retailers in their sales district.  So they are both spending a lot of time driving. Lisa tells Tom that she actually considered buying an Accord, but opted for the Fusion for one reason only.

“It’s a more comfortable car. The drivers seat is wonderful, and as you know Tom, that makes a big difference given how many miles we have to drive every day”, Lisa explains to Tom. Since Lisa understands Tom, she can give him customized feedback that’s more relevant to Tom.

Guess which automobile Tom will likely buy? And if Ford were working with Lisa in an ambassador program, Lisa could relay that feedback to Ford, and perhaps Ford could tweak its marketing communications to highlight how comfortable the seats are in the Fusion, especially on longer drives.

 

So if you want to brand loyalty in 2019, focus on improving product quality, and also on leveraging your current, satisfied customers, as a way to acquire product feedback that will help you improve product quality.