3 Rules of Engagement: How to Build and Market Your Brand With An Online Community

By Nicole Coons
Marketing Vanguard/Principal Consultant
Integrated Marketing Solutions
Frost & Sullivan

If your company is interested in growing your brand by building an online community, it’s important to plan your approach and then follow some essential rules to ensure your brand’s voice comes through and your community becomes a place your audience wants to be a part of.

Here are some best practice rules of engagement for setting up and building your business through online communities:

1) Identify the Why of the Community. 

You might be inclined to say your group is for Vice Presidents of some particular function at some particular kind of company. The problem with that approach is a person’s title or company is a weak indication of their interest in a certain topic. In the flattening and collaboration happening within organizations, where marketers are wearing customer service hats, or IT leaders are working daily with HR teams, limiting your community to one group of titles could dampen the rich exchanges possible with a more diverse group.

In order to attract the right mix of people to your community, a better approach is to stake a claim on a compelling vision or cause that’s meaningful to your brand. State your Why and cast your net wide—invite everyone you know and everyone you meet from here on out, and let them decide if they’re on board with your belief, mission or cause. Let the members of your community declare their support, and you’re starting from a place of high engagement.

Savvy Marketer’s Tip: When a new member joins your community, ask them to introduce themselves with a statement about their personal Why and what they’re hoping to learn from being a part of your community. Be sure to reply back with “Welcome…!” yourself, and others will likely follow suit.

2) Be a Welcoming Host.

Everything you need to know about hosting an online community you learned when you threw your first party. You probably organized some activities, you provided food, you provided cheerful decor, and if people didn’t know each other, you helped get them acquainted. You made sure everyone was having fun. Most likely that did not involve standing on a platform in the middle of the room spouting everything you know. Instead, you probably spent a lot of time asking questions and prompting your guests with new ideas or stories. Then, you let the conversations and exchanges unfold from there. 

In similar fashion, the key to having an engaged online business community is to spend exponentially more time as the leader asking questions, taking polls, starting conversations, making introductions, and throwing out challenges like “set up a getting-to-know-you call with one person in the community today, and share with us one amazing thing about that person back on the forum.” You can even offer incentives for people who participate. So leave your articles, white papers, event promotions and sales pitches out of the picture. Make it your goal to be of service, and try to meet 100% of the people who are in your community because that kind of knowledge is power. Bonus points if the people in your community also have met one-on-one with at least a handful of the people in the community.

Savvy Marketer’s Tip: When you want to target your community for your brand’s offerings, consider them now an “insiders club”. They are a sample set of the millions more you want to reach with your message. As you do your work, poll them with questions you may have. Let them in on your process of working on your vision. Let them know this is not a promotion, but that you value their opinion for whatever it is you’re working on. 

3) Take it offline, early and often.

The surest way to send everyone running out of your community is to allow people to promote their latest wares, or worse, to do so yourself. Instead, keep the focus of your group on your shared cause or belief—and especially on the people—and a great way to do this is to offer frequent invitations to take the dialog off-line to brainstorm, talk about solutions or make new connections. You will rarely sell someone with a single pitch online. If you really want to generate some sales leads from your group, try sharing a celebratory story about what your business just helped another business do (because it’s in line with your amazing cause or mission—and because results are far more inspiring than benefit-laden sales pitches), and invite anyone who wants the back story to a private conversation. 

Savvy Marketer’s Tip: Set some ground rules for participation. Here are two areas to consider:

 1) Promotions. Either allow no promotions, designate one Promotional day a month, or set up a reserved tab for people to upload their promotional information like a “marketplace” where other members can browse freely without pushy messages filling their inbox.

2) Conversations. Encourage lots of invitations for 1:1 dialogs or mini-teleconferences offline, and invite your community to share back what they learn from each other on your forum. Recordings of group calls could be posted back on the group for others to listen to.

By taking these three simple steps, your online community has the chance to be a thriving place full of diverse and interesting people that will not only enjoy the opportunity to be a part of your community, but they very well might become your biggest influencers in growing your brand.

 

Don’t Let Technology Best You

New and Emerging Technologies to be Mindful Of

By Jeffrey Hayzlett
Primetime TV and Radio Host
Best-Selling Author and Global Business Celebrity





 

It seems that every day, a new tool is being introduced to the market that will revolutionize the way we do social media, content management, reputation management – you name it. Ad technology is another one of those areas many C-Suite executives feel there is much left to learn about.

When I speak to CMOs about emerging technology, a few key themes always seem to pop up:

• CMOs are overwhelmed by the plethora of ad technology
• Our ad tech lexicon is a mystery
• Marketers are challenged when implementing programs using new technologies

There are a few key areas CMOs and marketing leaders need to be aware of when dealing with emerging technologies.

Big Data is not a new discovery. 

First, you need to understand the issues CMOs face when it comes to advertising technology. I think the biggest over-used words right now are big data. It has been here for years and it’s not going away nor is it this great big new discovery. Rather than try and eat the whole hog, you need to find the piece of bacon that can help you achieve maximum efficiency using data to gain more engagement with your customers. The discovery of big data is not the answer, it’s the use of the right data that is the real game. If content is king and activation is queen, then context is the kingdom. Therefore, what you have to do as a marketer is to find more ways to utilize the data and all of the pieces to foster engagement with clients and to do that, you use great content, activate that content and put it into context, which will be meaningful for your customers.

Privacy and avoiding the creep factor. 

The second issue to understand is privacy. We need to be able to continue our engagement with customers so that they’re comfortable. You have to become a trusted partner for customer’s information. Everyone likes to go to a great restaurant and be treated like a king or a queen -- a place like Cheers where everybody knows your name. To do so, you need to find ways for the customer to trust your brand, bit by bit, and show them that you’re reliable. But do so carefully – to avoid the ‘creep factor’ of going too far with the information you have been given access to. 

Mobile is the future. 

Mobile is the most personalized technology we have at the moment. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – ‘people know where their phones are more than they know where their children are,’ but it’s still something that’s in its infancy stage and it’s extremely complex. While it’s in the millions, it’s not in the billions in terms of revenue with regards to advertising and marketing. It’s certainly become a place to go for search but it has not become a place to go for advertising. The good news is the best is yet to come!

Another important step to better utilize this new technology involves strategizing with your team. I recently interviewed Frank Cooper, CMO of Global Consumer Engagement for PepsiCo, on C-Suite TV. We discussed the way PepsiCo uses mobile technology and the organizational challenges he faces when developing mobile campaigns. There are still too many CMOs right now whose mobile strategy is “I have an iPhone app.” Since that is not a very strong strategy, I think most CMOs right now need to start by forming “tiger teams” to start to formulate and implement that strategy. Tiger teams should be small at first, since they will be testing different techniques and tactics in order to find out what works best, not only for your organization, but what resonates better with your customers.

Patience, no one is going to die. 

Finally, you need to make sure you really understand the new technology at hand, and have patience with yourself and your teams as you learn. Most large brands don’t know every developing technology and the best ways to use it. There are so many new things they are developing every single day, they can’t even keep up with the terms. I was in a conference where an executive from TubeMogul stood up and started talking about video platforms and supply-side platforms and asked how many people, in a room of CMOs, knew about these terms. Maybe it was the after-lunch coma, but only one or two hands went up in a room of a few hundred. Executives have to get down into the details, they need to get out of the meetings and gain hands on experience with new tech solutions.

Technology is ever evolving, especially in today’s fast-paced business environment. There are still new and developing fields. The most important piece is to crawl, walk, then run when it comes to implementation. Get in, get dirty. The good news is that even if you are crawling, at least you’re doing something. As marketers, we need to adapt, change or die otherwise we will be left behind – and you don’t want to be left behind. 

Jeffrey Hayzlett won a Frost & Sullivan Sales & Marketing Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

Building An “Everyone Helps” Content Ecosystem

By Jessica Jeffcoat
Research Analyst, Growth Team Membership (GTM)
Frost & Sullivan






Global B2B test and measurement company National Instruments (NI) was in a position that I’m sure many marketers can relate to: Many different groups from throughout the organization were involved in producing a variety of digital content—from those creating the website’s “About Us” blurb to those writing in-depth, technical white papers. However, the various parts of the organization involved in content creation didn’t necessarily talk to each other, or create content that adhered to any sort of overarching brand or quality standards. It wasn’t clear exactly what content was out there, who was creating it, and whether each piece of content met a specific customer need. 

NI was presenting itself to the world through lots of channels, with many different voices, and Marketing was starting to feel like it was losing control of the whole process. Marketing had to find a way to regain control without stifling creativity or productivity. How Marketing did this—and created an “ecosystem” that put itself back in the driver’s seat—is the crux of this story.

Our new Best Practice Guidebook looks at how National Instruments addressed these challenges by developing a content marketing “ecosystem”—a system of people and processes—which serves as the foundation for the company’s digital content marketing efforts.

To learn more about how National Instruments used its content ecosystem to increase
lead generation, boost online sales, increase process efficiency and enhance brand awareness, access a three-page excerpt from the 13-page Best Practice Guidebook, Building an “Everyone Helps” Content Ecosystem.

If you are interested in learning more about GTM, please contact us at: GTMResearch@frost.com, follow us on Twitter @Frost_GTM, or visit us at www.gtm.frost.com.

The New World of User-Centric Marketing

Wearable technology is helping marketers to connect with customers in ways they never thought imaginable.

By Elyse Winer
Senior Manager, Marketing
MC10

Image Credit: Bionicly

From glasses to smart watches, wristbands to clothing embedded with sensors, a walk through the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas revealed that wearable technology is here to stay.  Analysts predict that wearables will be a ubiquitous part of our daily lives.  Venture capital investment in the space has grown from $49 million in 2011 to $282 million in 2013.  BCC Research estimates that wearable device sales will reach $30.2 billion by 2018.

And marketers are starting to take notice.

Just as the insights captured by these devices are shaping decision-making for consumers related to their health, they also present an opportunity for brands to enhance their marketing strategies based on audience behavior.  A 2015 study of 478 CMOs and Senior Marketing Executives worldwide by The Economist Intelligence Unit unveiled that respondents site “the internet of things” and “wearable technology” as two of the trends that will have the biggest impact on marketers by 2020.  Marketers are increasingly looking to wearables to deepen their connections with customers and deliver more relevant and timely messages.

MC10’s uniquely conformal and ultra-thin wearable technology platform has received tremendous interest from sports & fitness giants and healthcare companies.  Partnerships in these areas have helped to position us as a leader in the wearables space.  It was not until recently, however, that marketers made their way into the mix - all interested in leveraging on-body devices to create more user-centric offerings for their customers.   

But a major question remains unanswered- how will marketers be able to reach connected consumers, all while ensuring the experience is personal, discreet, and well-timed?  Here are the biggest opportunities we see at MC10:

Personalize the message:

The future of wearable advertising will mean that messages can be more targeted, emotion provoking and conversational.  Real-time insight into customer biometrics or location provides marketers with new opportunities to target customers with relevant offerings.  Imagine Starbucks reaching out with a discount for a Frappuccino when a wearer’s energy levels have plunged, or Ben & Jerry’s targeting users on an unseasonably hot day.  Wearables don’t just offer more blank canvases for personalized messages; they also provide a meaningful opportunity to drive product sales.  When advertisements are relevant and engaging, it feels less like a disruption and more like a dialogue.

Enhance the experience:

Entertainment, media and communications companies are already exploring how wearables can provide more immersive and interactive experiences for their customers.  At last year’s SXSW in Austin, Pepsi partnered with Lightwave, Fast Company and DJ A-Trak to pull biometrics into the fan experience. Lightwave wristbands track and visualize real-time fan analytics like movement, temperature and excitement, allowing the musician to customize the experience based on real-time crowd feedback.  Consumers are also looking to wearable tech to make traditional entertainment experiences more seamless and fun.  Disney introduced the Magic Band – a wrist-worn device that allows customers to “be the ticket,” gaining instant access to park features, hotel rooms, and even cashless payments.  

Rethink retail:

As wearable tech adoption increases, we are beginning to think of new ways for retailers to incorporate the technology into an already crowded, multichannel marketing mix.   Marketers should think about wearables being an extension of their mobile marketing strategy, and not a replacement for the phone.  For consumers, wearables can improve the shopping experience through faster payment and customized promotions or offers.  For retailers, wearables can collect shopper data like buying habits, in-store frequency, length of stay and dwell times.  This kind of granular customer data allows for you to optimize in-store operations, store layout and product placement in order to improve sales.

Conclusion:

Marketers are consistently pressured to be more data and customer-driven in their decision-making, and to use new technologies that engage customers in new and more authentic ways.  Capturing the data derived from wearable devices and turning it into something meaningful for the consumer presents a challenge, but also an exciting opportunity.