When thinking about how the internet has fundamentally
shifted the balance of power to the customer, the following (frightening)
phrases might come to the marketer’s mind:
Rapidly changing rules
Loss of control
Feeling uncomfortable
Transparency
As “Groundswell” article states,
If
you have a brand, you’re under threat. Your customers may have an idea
about your brand that varies from the image you are projecting.
If
you work for a media company—look out. Advertisers are shifting more of
their money online.If
you are a retailer, your lock on distribution is over.
As a Type-A personality marketer
myself, I have to admit my skin crawls a bit thinking about all the people that
could be out there talking about my brand unsupervised and uncontrolled. With a
push of a button they could be sharing their opinion with thousands. They could
be saying anything they want! What’s even scarier is that there doesn’t seem to
be a well-defined, well-tested mode of response. Customers are in control, and
most marketers haven’t figured out what to do about it. In one sense, it seems
like a marketer’s worst nightmare.
But the more I think about it, does
my response make sense? At its core, isn’t the purpose of marketing (and a
business) to satisfy customer needs (for
a profit)? If our goal as marketers and business people is to satisfy the
customer, shouldn’t a more empowered customer
actually be a good thing? An empowered customer might be more likely
to slander a bad product— but isn’t that something the business should be aware
of so that they can improve product quality? An empowered customer might be
more likely to talk about your brand in ways you can’t control—but isn’t the
most important thing about a brand what it means to customers?
Embracing the age of the empowered
customer is uncomfortable. It’s messy. It makes you feel vulnerable. But if
done right, empowered customers can also be extremely empowering for marketers.
Like I said, there is no proven
framework or set of rules of what marketers should do, but here are some common
themes from the readings that could be a good place to start. Interestingly,
each of these actually takes the “frightening” phrases listed at the top and
turns them around to a company’s benefit.
To succeed
in the new world of the empowered customer, marketers should:
- Don’t be afraid to Experiment or take risks—As
the “Groundswell” article mentioned, after Diggs.com acquiesced to the requests
of the regulatory agencies several times, the CEO finally took a big risk and
listened to his customers, putting up the DVD code on his home page
- Focus on Collaboration, not control—At
first, Threadless.com might not seem like a business (“Dawn of Human Network”)
since the company itself generates very little of its own content. But by
combining its host site and manufacturing with its customers’ creativity and
content, the site has turned into an extremely profitable business.
- Embrace
Humility—In the old world of marketing, it might be tempting to think that
you “know it all” or can “do it alone.” In the new world, it is particularly
important to realize that you don’t know everything and that you cannot go it
alone. In Snakes on a Plane (“Groundswell”),
the movie company realized that they had lost control of their target audience
and the movie’s content but instead of trying to reclaim it, they simply
incorporated the feedback of its fans to create an instant hit.
- Listen
and respond:
As
“Making the Transition to the Social Web” states, “Marketing to the social web is not about getting your story out, it’s
about your customers. It’s about being more transparent, earning trust,
building credibility. It’s about nurturing relationships and dialogue among
customers, prospects, your company, and whoever else is active in the
community.”
Dell is a good
example of a company who turned negative social media about its company into a way
to turn the company around (“Dell Learns to Listen”). In response to customer
complaints, Dell made significant changes to the company to help improve it:
- Dell created a Direct2Dell blog where it
meaningfully engaged with customers to understand and fix their problems and
IdeaStorm.com where it asked customers to tell the company what to do. And as a
result of customer feedback, negative social media comments about the company
dropped from 49% to 22%.
- Dell realized that significant cost-cutting
had gotten in the way of customer service. In response, it A) reduced its outsourcing
partners from 14 to 6 (with plans of reducing to 3), B) stopped counting “handle
time” (which promoted an average number of 7 transfers!) and C) focused on “Resolve
in 1 call.”
Letting the customer in is not
easy. It opens your eyes to what you are doing wrong. It creates bigger risks. It
means letting go of control. But the examples above demonstrate that empowered customers don’t necessarily mean
disempowered corporations. If managed properly, the equation can change from “minus”
to “plus”, where companies are combining their powers with the power of the customer
for 2x the impact.
As the Dell CMO said, “listening
to our customers… that is actually the most perfect form of marketing you could
have.”
Sources
·
“Made to Engage” (week 1)
·
“The New Conversation” TG4 (week 1)
·
“Groundswell” (week 2)
·
“Dawn of the Human Network” (week 2)
·
“Making the Transition to the Social Web” (week
2)
Additional Reading List
·
Books 2.0 (week 1)
·
The Web & TV, a sibling rivalry (week 1)
·
Katie Couric—“What is the Internet Anyway?)
(week 1)
·
The Internet before Search Engines—the 1990s
point of view (week 2)
·
Web Video: the New, New Thing (week 2)
·
The Social Marketing Playbook (week 2)
·
“Star Search” (NPR) (week 2)
Crowdsourcing Evolution, YouTube (week 2)
