Lessons Learned For Today and the FutureM

Last week, I had a great opportunity to mix and mingle with marketers as we navigated through the world of technology. Digital media will always be about bridging the gap between the real world and the virtual world, while contributing to the overall ROI, and making a true connection with the audience.

The forces came together to kick off the FutureM week of events at the Harvard Faculty Club with the Gravity Summit. It was located at the Harvard campus where the social media platform Facebook was born. The event broke new ground bringing a great group of speakers and attendees from across the country. People showcased their marketing stories using social media showing how big brands have made a few “Friends” and “Followers” along the way. Executives that contributed were from Bing, Mr. Youth, former CNN reporter Rick Sanchez, Audi, CFO of Hootsuite and others. I listened and tweeted away with new tips to share. Here is a link to a list of presentations that might be useful for you.

Respect, Recognition and Reward!

At the Gravity Summit, speaker Doug Clark, GM of Social Media and Customer Engagement for Audi, provided some solid advice to marketers. He shared a story of a woman that was a fan of the Audi TT Quattro sports car. Women are a great demographic for the brand. They made one woman’s wish come true with a car! Doug and his team followed the story of one special lady and listened to her interests and desire to drive the car. The company decided to drive to her door with the Quattro for her to take it for a spin! This is one great example using social media. Audi listened to its influencers and took the right action to create the right opportunity. As Greg Shove, CEO of Halogen Media shared also at the Summit, “Find the most interesting person, or activity that can take on a life of its own on your behalf and watch it grow.”

Stop. Collaborate. Listen to Your Audience.

Matt Britton, CEO of Mr. Youth said, “Friends want to connect with other friends, collaborate and have control of their privacy.” Why is that concept so hard for some companies to understand that same notion online? It’s how we want to connect and relate to each other in the real world so why should communicating online be any different?

As Audi’s Doug Clark presented his approach and I provided my comments:

• Offer a seat at the table - Welcome your audience
• Open doors – Make it easy for one to engage without barriers
• Create a win/win – Make it something rewarding for both parties
• Recognize a need – Determine your customers needs or wants
• Be quick to respond – Learn to take action and be agile
• Learn from audience – Take action based on new insights
• Listen and engage – Keep your ears/eyes alert searching for comments
• See yourself through the eyes of the customer – Put yourself in their shoes
• Be honest and authentic – Say it from the heart, and always be true to yourself and your brand

The Theme at FutureM was MOBILE
“Hi, I’m Human. Remember That?”

"App-tizers" to Choose and Make Real Connections with Customers

It’s not just about calling a friend, but rather a connection to “reaching out and touch someone” with new tools and social media tactics. Yet, so often I keep seeing marketing professionals trying to fit in with the wrong approach. Good examples include QR codes and checking in with Foursquare to check-out. Some disruptive technologies and changes are good, but remember to listen and learn from the natural daily actions, behaviors and what people want.

Chris Mahl, Chief Brand Alchemist of Levelup and SCVNGR, spoke at FutureM’s event and suggested for marketers to recognize, “What are the noticeable behaviors, what does your audience respond to, and make sure to treat your customer as an individual.” People need people, convenience and value – not a quirky gimmick or a link that just drives you to a website with no proper direction. You need to make it personalized to drive impulse and purpose.

John Caron, SVP of Marketing for Modiv Media, noted when marketing mobile, or for marketing anything for that matter, you must remember, “Reach, relevance and recognition.” When creating or defining the attributes of you product and/or service, be sure to consider those three aspects as part of putting together the message. Listen to what your audience seeks and the unique connection to you or your business. Regardless of the new toys we have available to play with today and into tomorrow, we all have strong emotions and there is a difference in how we all want to be treated, recognized and valued as human beings.

The Future Is Now

After a long week at FutureM 2010, many professionals and young people came together to share new insights and experiences around the future of technology, marketing and business. New innovations maybe on the way for mobile carriers to having their own credit cards, or partnering with others to help better facilitate the exchange of goods and build loyalty. Additionally, new movements are forming to better understand how to measure the behaviors of the audience to strategizing your next step for engagement. All in all, it’s about listening to your audience, identifying the community and contributing to it, by providing useful resources in a manner that is not selling and yelling, but rather creating and curating the conversation. The importance of mapping out the touch points of your audience both online and off-line to establishing the right message, at the right time, using the right medium.

Although everyone wants to learn what’s new on the horizon and social media is the rave, don’t forget to neglect traditional means of marketing to your audience, as Victor Lee, SVP of Marketing and Branded Entertainment of Digitas suggested an integrated approach. “Think of the analogy of the leaky bucket and make sure to balance the information across other channels between traditional and online. If you have too much in one area and not the others, you’ll run into leaks.” I’ve promoted that same notion time and time again to others. As one monitors the different channels of information to reach audiences, consider this as guidance to planning your next steps to engaging them:

1. Define the goal
2. Map out engagement across different touch points
3. Review behavior: Where they came from and where are they going?
4. Build rapport and sense of community by creating a personal experience
5. Listen and address customer service

How about measuring the results?

One needs to review such metrics as to what keywords are people typing to learn about your brand and competitors, how many website visitors are you attracting based on those keyword searches, where else is the audience going once they left your website or complementary mobile apps, and how many of those visitors took action that may have converted into real results based on your goal? I’ve been noticing the amount of likes, sign-up now, check-ins there and every where to eventually turn into another form of SPAM for the customer. The brands that are authentic, listen, reach out and provide value to the audience over time, are the products and services that will prevail.

• Listen
• Curate
• Contribute
• Activate

As Victor mentioned as well, “don’t just look at the amount of ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ one brand has, but look at the action one takes after a certain marketing campaign or promotion that positions the customers ‘in market’ to finding something valuable about your business to take action.” If it takes multiple clicks before getting a conversion, see if you can better streamline the process, or avoid that medium altogether with your product and/or service.

• Build community to create advocacy
• Focus on content strategy
• Follow people that follow you back
• Ask people to invite three more friends to join your cause

 

If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again

Despite the multiple challenges along the way, Tom First certainly tried and tried again to keep his business alive and pursue what he loved. As one of the founders of Nantucket Nectars, he offered entrepreneurs and marketing professionals advice on his keys to success with no formal business background of his own at FutureM.

Go with your gut and be real with your customers. What we know today as best practices for social media is what Tom was doing before the phenomenon existed online. He would make a point to pound the pavements of Boston to DC and speak with people to find out what they were saying about his new juice concoction.

When the radio guys said you need a catchy script to sell your product, he said to his partner Tom, we’ll just make something up on the spot. Tom & Tom created a real conversation on the radio telling their story about their product. People listened and it built trust in the brand.

The industry said you have to do something a certain way to find success. Tom First figured out on his own to break the rules conducting taste tests across the country out of the back of his car, dropping into local restaurants to “do lunch” at multiple mom and pop stores to increase his distribution, and learned how to define a new way of doing business.

Mom was always right – SAY PLEASE, THANK YOU and BE POLITE!

Being real, connect with your audience online and off-line, listen, put a face behind your product and be polite. These were some of the tactics that Tom First adopted at the different stages of his business. Today, many marketers are trying to put more flashy sales tactics, use bait and switch tactics to generate leads to up-sell products and services, or gain a following of fans through Facebook and Twitter to sell and not tell an honest story. As Tom First said, “Regardless of marketing in this market, if your product sucks, doesn’t matter how much you do to grab someone’s attention.”