Below is my recent presentation to the Minnesota Funeral Directors Association annual conference. I’ve laid out 7 digital trends that are pertinent to the funeral industry and have given some helpful hints on some digital tools funeral directors can use to improve their digital footprint.
Many companies face deep organizational challenges in terms of aligning their marketing initiatives with their customer’s decision journey. This is certainly the case with large organizations but also with small and medium sized businesses.
In a recent McKinsey & Company article, they surveyed executives across 20 industries about the role of digital in their companies and found a startling difference between the high and low performers. With best-in-class companies 70% of managers could identify and speak to their digital KPIs, indicating that their digital marketing efforts are a priority for the company.
“When it comes to measuring impact of digital spend through effective ROI techniques, the best-in-class companies can measure the impact of 85% of their digital spend. For those in the bottom quartile, it’s 10% again.” – McKinsey & Company
While this survey mostly concentrated on bigger businesses, SMEs should definitely take note and look to emulate what the best-in-class companies are doing in terms of shifting their focus around the customer’s path to purchase and making sure their marketing and IT departments are informed and working together
Here are some key elements on shifting priorities to concentrate on that consumer journey: (McKinsey & Company)
Cross-functional alignment
On consumer decision journey, digital strategy, goals
Project management support
With engaged executive team
Talent development & recruitment
Analytics, experiential design, mindset evolution
Responsive flexibility
To the market, to results, evolution of customers
Test and learn
Relentless part of the operational DNA, culture shift
Here’s a presentation by David Edelman speaking to this subject:
The Harvard Business Review has a great article, Advertising Analytics 2.0 in their March edition where they discuss marketers common habit of measuring performance of each channel as if they worked independently of each other. They use of the metaphor of swim lanes and suggest how marketers need to think in terms of cross channel path-to-purchase and start to pay attention to how certain channels give an “assist” in terms of influencing a consumer to buy.
I continually see companies, both big and small, continue to view their marketing and ad campaigns through a narrow lens and fixate on channel which lead to a direct sale. There’s a lot of consternation about the ROI of social media sites but it helps to understand the support role these channels play in getting a customer to convert. The graphic by HBR demonstrates this well:
Google recently came out with some research called Zero Moment of Truth that very clearly and convincingly lays out the business case for social media and how it impacts the consumer’s buying journey.
Google states that the Zero Moment of Truth is the moment when a consumer picks up a laptop, mobile phone or other wired device to research a product or serve and then decide what to buy. The research shows that more and more, people are making their buying decisions well before they get to the store.
Recently, I’ve been telling anyone who will listen (ad nauseum, perhaps) that there’s been a fundamental shift in how consumers gather data and how they’re using that data to make buying decisions for products from new cars to ball point pens.
They are increasingly turning to online social interactions to check out ratings and reviews (which is a form of social sharing) for opinions on products and services and searching what a brand’s Facebook Pages or Twitter account has for deals and insights as to what’s new. They’re also using sites like YouTube and Vimeo to research how-to videos or demos on how products are used. Here’s some interesting stats that highlight this behavior:
All these social interactions can be quickly and easily found using search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. For a long time the conventional wisdom was that people won’t go out of their way to research things like laundry detergent and butter but in fact they do. Google’s research clearly shows they do.
The graphic below shows when those Zero Moments of Truth are happening:
Average purchase cycles for three diverse categories
If you don’t believe what Google’s saying, the Harvard Business Review came out with some research from McKinsey & Company that supports Google’s thinking. (See my recent article Consumer Decision Journey in the Digital Age) They’ve actually documented this behavior in 2009 and Google backs up their assertion that brands need to be at that digital evaluation process or Zero Moment of Truth when the consumer looks for information. If a brand isn’t showing up when consumers do their search, they are losing sales.
Where social media really makes its impact is in the advocacy phase of the consumer’s buying journey after they’ve taken advantage of a service or brought a product home and used it. If they like it (or not) they will go on Facebook, Amazon.com, Twitter, blogs, Consumer Reports, or brand website and let you know what they think. And for the first time in history, this word-of-mouth communication is being digitally archived making one person’s advocacy someone else’s Zero Moment of Truth.
I highly recommend you check out Google’s research (it’s free), watch all the videos and read it in its entirety. This Zero Moment of Truth will become, if it’s not already, the most important impetus for a customer to buy your company’s goods and/or services.
IBM Global CMO Study
IBM has recently released their IBM Global CMO Study for 2011 and once again, social media comes up very high in what CMOs see as an area of concern for the future of their business. Other areas of concern were the data explosion, proliferation of channels and devices and shifting consumer demographics; all of which tie into social media.
The one tidbit I found most interesting in this study was CMOs are still predominantly relying on traditional sources of information such as focus groups and studies that focus on understanding markets rather than individuals. It seems that most are still ignoring what people are saying about them through social channels. Case in point:
In a past blog post, called Consumer Decision Journey in the Digital Age, I highlight a McKinsey & Company study that shows how more and more consumers are using these social channels to make their buying decisions. However, organizations have yet to leverage these tools which can provide crucial insights into how customers and influencers think and behave.
The graph below shows the sources of information CMOs are using to make strategic marketing decisions and as you can see most are paying more attention to markets than individuals. The key sources to understanding individuals (highlighted in yellow) still are ranked relatively low:
It’s quite obvious that CMO’s have not yet aligned their strategies with how consumers are behaving today and aren’t keeping up with the trends in technology. Therefore, I see a big role for social media going forward and the companies that embrace this trend will be well positioned to be leaders in their industries.
The quick answer is we don’t know yet but the popular belief is that Google+ will play a significant role in your search engine optimization efforts (SEO) in near future. Most people I run into are rolling their eyes at yet another social network but there may be something to Googe+ that businesses need to pay attention to.
Google is attempting differentiate itself from Facebook by allowing people to divide their friends, colleagues, acquaintances into groups and share individually targeted content. And it’ll most likely be the case when it comes to brands. My guess is that Google will attempt to capitalize on this functionality and apply the notion of building individual audiences to its version of business pages. This will allow page owners to communicate with different groups through one main page.
I wouldn’t concern myself too much with the hype right now (fastest to 10 millions users) but I would suggest you start preparing for the eventual launch of business pages. Note: DO NOT start a profile for your brand yet as Google has been aggressively deleting branded profiles. The functionality will be coming soon so here are some ideas on how you can prepare your business:
Consumers today are connecting with brands in fundamentally new ways, as more and more of them are actively participating in sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and soon to be Google+1. Yet companies are still very slow to adopt this media into their marketing strategies.
A recent survey by Jive Software and Penn, Schoen & Berland found 78% of executives thought a social business strategy was somewhat or very important to the future success of their business. Yet most are still only in the beginning stages of making their social strategy a priority. Only 27% listed social business as a top strategic priority in 2011 and half admitted a social plan was necessary but not a strategic priority.
While no one is suggesting companies abandon their past marketing activities for a social only strategy; they need to consider revising their marketing mix to reflect this new age of interaction. And they need to do this sooner rather than later. The Harvard Business Review had a great article this last December called Branding in the Digital Age: You’re Spending You Money in All the Wrong Places, where it demonstrates how the consumer decision journey has dramatically shifted in past five years; altering how they buy products and services. However, companies still continue to embrace outdated marketing strategies and thus aren’t keeping up with their customer’s buying habits.
Due to this slow pace of social media integration, the gap between consumer’s adoption of social media and corporation’s ability to integrate social into their marketing mix seems to be widening. The question for companies today is; how long are you willing to continue allowing this gap to grow before your market share begins to erode. As small businesses, startups, entrepreneurs, consultants, and agencies begin to utilize social media to get an edge on their competition, you’ll start seeing some larger companies lose their footing.
Just a year ago everyone was clamoring to build for the iPhone and had scant interest in building an Android app. Oh what a difference a year makes. Google’s operating system is now blowing everyone out of the water in the smartphone market; with a 38.1% share. Apple is now a distant second with a 26.6% share. What about Blackberry’s RIM platform?..forget about it. They’re toast, as they’ve now dropped 14.5% to 24.7% market share. See chart:
Samsung , LG and Motorola are leading the way in smartphones sales with iPhone at #4. All use Google’s operating system and all have equivalent if not better phones than Apple. The cool factor of the iPhone is starting to wear off and its competition is getting better and better. So if you’re a marketer, you better plan on creating that Android app first.
It used to be iPhone users would look down on me and scoff at the thought of using any other device; in spite of the fact that 80% of their calls were dropped. Well, look who’s scoffing now. Me and my Samsung feel vindicated. Now start building me some apps.
The presentation below was presented to the HBS Chapter of the Harvard Club of Minnesota and focused on building a solid business case on why social media should become a critical component to a company’s overall marketing strategy; specifically as it relates to the consumer decision journey.
According to people at Unica and their State of Marketing 2011 study, social media is no longer the adorable baby everyone wants to hold, but the angst filled adolescent – still immature yet no longer cute – who inspires mixed feelings. The truth is social is no longer the shinny object in the room but an increasingly critical tool in a marketer’s toolbox that needs to start producing results. However there is still uncertainty in how it can prove its worth to the c-suite.
Thus, I believe the critical point in making social media efforts successful is the ability for companies to align their social efforts with existing business objectives as well as utilizing these tools in key touch points in the consumer’s journey. They also need to realize that staffing correctly and putting in place a structure for managing social channels is key to executing a successful social media strategy. My hope is that this presentation makes that case and provides a guide to organizing and measuring social’s success.
Social media monitoring tools are essential for companies trying to gauge online conversations pertaining to their brand(s). There are numerous platforms to choose from; with almost 200 in the market place, it’s getting difficult to select the right one.
Below are some things to consider when choosing your platform along with a list of the most-used platforms out there.
Cost
Understandably, price is usually one of the top concerns, but be sure you’re getting all that you can out of the platform. Missing important conversations because your monitoring tool doesn’t pick up a specific channel can mean lost opportunities. It doesn’t bode well to be penny wise and a pound foolish with these tools.
Range of Coverage
All platforms cover the large social channels (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn) but not all cover bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit or specific forums and chat rooms. Be sure to find out all sites covered in a platform. Here’s a list of the most important social sites out there today.
Workflow Capabilities
If you have a multitude of departments needing to monitor and engage, you better figure out how you’re going to manage all these people and sites. Marketing needs to understand what customer service is doing along with HR, public relations, c-suite, sales, etc.
Integration with Other Applications
This is a big concern for companies with more complex social programs and highly matrixed structures. Be sure you know ahead of time what other applications you’ll be using before you select a monitoring tool.
Global Coverage
If you’re doing business on a global scale make sure you’re picking up conversations on such sites as Orkut, Renren, StudiVZ, Bebo and Kontakte, just to name a few. This capability isn’t cheep so don’t buy it if you don’t need it. Click here for a comprehensive list of global social networking websites.
Support and Training
Many of these tools are becoming quite sophisticated and are ever-changing to meet the newest platforms; thus, it’s important that the account team is keeping you up-to-speed on what is relevant to you.
Metrics and Reporting
You better be able to measure what you’re doing with social media or you’ll be out of a job fast. The big question always revolves around ROI so you better come prepared with numbers and killer graphs to impress the CEO.
Platforms
This certainly isn’t a comprehensive list but this should get you started in the right direction. For a comprehensive list with platform description, pricing and links check out Seamless Social’s list.
For a quick comparison of some of these tools click here.
For those looking for lower cost solutions, check out “10 lower-priced monitoring services for nonprofits & organizations“
